The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
We've all been warned about Internet safety and privacy, but how much of it do we take seriously? We often give away a lot of information about ourselves with little thought to the ramifications and little thought that we have any other option. A few years ago, a software developer even offered to give away $10,000 at the bottom of one of the "I accept this license" buttons that we push when we install something new on our computers. Placed very close to the end of the long contract, only one person read far enough down in the licensing agreement to see that all he had to do was contact the company and they would give him the money as a reward for actually reading the agreement. Privacy has come up again in the last few weeks and months as search engine companies have been in the news over the amount of customer information they retain. As an example, we need to start with Google. I have a personalized Google homepage. The service is free and I've set it up and organized my page with all of the information that I need. But of course Google sells the advertisements that come up when I search the web. Over time, Google has built up a profile about me. They record all of the things I search for, where I surf from, the times that I am generally using their service and so on. But even if you have never bothered to set up a homepage with Google or another company offering this service, you are still being tracked. Your Internet service provider (ISP), from which you buy your Internet service, has provided you with an IP address, making it easier to track your Internet usage for their billing purposes. Any time you go online, this number goes with you. So Google or other companies may not have your name to work with, but they have data about you simply by tracking your IP address. What this data is good for is tracking down crooks and criminals online. It helps the police to track child porn online and can bring them knocking on your door if you have bad habits. So the ability to follow data online can be a good thing. But the reason this has been in the news lately is over the amount of time that all of this data is retained. Keeping Data Google never used to say how long they were keeping the data for. But last month they announced they would only keep their data for 18 months. This set a new standard and last week Microsoft announced they would match this number. While better than in the past, these two companies do not come close to AOL's press release stating that they will only keep their data for 13 months, or Ask.com's policy of allowing consumers to block the recording of certain search terms or complete IP address recording. This is the equivalent of being able to block a lot of junk mail from coming to your mailbox and is quite an inventive policy which they should be given credit for having. All of this data can also be used in many countries where they track the Internet habits of their citizens much more closely than is allowed in Canada. While certain nations like China and Saudi Arabia closely follow and restrict where people are allowed online, even surfers in the United States should worry as the courts have repeatedly held up laws that require ISPs to hand over records to the government when people are suspected of illegal activity. While some people say that honest citizens should never be afraid of the government looking into their activities online, I am more proud that the Canadian courts have fought off organizations such as the RIAA and the MPAA from getting access to the records of their clients in their search for people who download music and movies illegally. So as a person who spends time online, you need to be aware that you are constantly leaving a virtual trail of bread crumbs behind you that can be tracked. But in Canada, often the only consequences are that more and more of the marketing that you come across online is being tailored to you. ([email protected]) Tech Notes runs Mondays.
