Actually some tracking can be done simply with a "pixel" which is, literally, a one pixel, transparent image embedded on the page.
How 1990s. Nobody does that anymore. You would have to parse your logs and then integrate it with your database. People used to use that for page count but it is useless for tracking behavior of the user. It is not cookie based, only IP based which does not take into account mobile users whose IP changes several times a day.
Log integration isn't required. Just something that detects the GET and does something with the details from the GET which can have a lot encoded in the path.
The pixel can be used to set/get cookies.
Simpler than you imagine.
Please find me a page from a modern high profile website that employs that technique. I would be interested to view the HTML source. I was under the assumption that the 1-pixel technique became obsolete a decade or more ago.
Again if you are doing something with the GET request outside of the logs then you are using Javascript which relates back to my original comment to use Ajax to track user behavior into a database. Or, if you are using a scripting platform such as php to interact with the database then you are certainly not an external third party ad broker.
Please find me a page from a modern high profile website that employs that technique. I would be interested to view the HTML source. I was under the assumption that the 1-pixel technique became obsolete a decade or more ago.
All Facebook pixels are now up to 3X faster. We’ve rewritten a large part of our server response code and used javascript minification so that pixel load times can meet even the most strict customer SLAs.
Could be a couple of reasons: Add some information to the cookie for example. But really, most likely, I just want to know that I've seen you before (hence the cookie). I probably do something like try to give YOU a unique ID and then can detect when and where you visit if my pixel is on multiple sites (which, if I'm a data/behavioral tracking service, I probably am). All of that is obviously more involved. But the basic mechanics of the pixel are actually pretty simple (and don't require Javascript).
Don't get me wrong, they'd prefer to use JS (and will if it's enabled). But pixels are still widely used for certain approaches to tracking.
As far as I know the HTTP cookie cannot be accessed by the server scripting language be it PHP or .Net. If your form data is saved so you can hit the back button, the server should not be able to access that data. Only if you set a browser cookie with Javascript or a server cookie such as in the registry, url, Flash or other methods like HTML5 local data can the server access that data.
It can be. In fact it's used all the time. In fact it's how most websites keep you logged in from session to session: They do a "Set-Cookie" with a cookie named something like "logged_in" or "user_id" and the value is your unique user ID with that website. Then when you return it gets that cookie and knows you're still logged in. Obviously the specific behavior varies from site to site. But that's the "Reader's Digest version".
Understood, however this discussion has wandered into another topic. My original comment was that a 1-pixel image in straight HTML without JS or PHP, etc is useless to do any precise or useful user tracking. The 1-pixel image is no different than serving an ad. You need JS to make it useful to the ad broker.
This mental illness is the reason people are allowing their rights to be stolen. This is in no way an argument.
Oh, and on the subject of cookies, is there a cookie blacklist utility for OS X’s Safari?
I’m going to guess at the length of time that has passed since I last cleared out my cookies. Given the state of my depression and the dilation of time due to my memory loss, let’s go with just over a month. In that time, I’ve gone from ~50 cookies (kept from sites I actually want) to over 1000 today.
Seriously, why does this have to be couched in terms of "war" or some kind of epic battle of good vs. evil?
Seems simple enough: Don't like ads? Don't visit websites with ads. If you still want to visit those sites with an ad blocker enabled and they, reasonably, ask you to turn it off, stop visiting.
Enough people do this, the publishers will adjust in some way...perhaps offering a subscription model.
This isn't "war". This isn't "good vs. evil." It's simply a business model being tested and challenged.
This ABSOLUTELY IS good vs evil, since ads have became more and more aggressive over the time, at the point that actual content are hardly enjoyable on some websites, and your mobile data plan take a tangible hit just to visit a website.
With perhaps 32 Billion GMail messages flowing between Google servers every day (16% of the estimated total 205B daily emails across all services) "read" would be highly unlikely. Machine scan and keyword index would be more accurate. FWIW nearly all email providers, including big ones like Apple and Microsoft, will read machine scan content to track spam, malware and in some cases illegal content, but I've no idea how many also do so to assist with advertising. Google of course is one of the latter as would be Yahoo, Earthlink and AOL.
There are very few email services that do not scan (sometimes broadly written as "read") your messages, and they are all relatively small and unknown. They certainly would not be appropriate for the average home user IMHO.
You are being naive.
Google's core business is data mining.....
Yep, there isn't anyone actually READING your emails, but they are selling your habits nonetheless .... and NO, Apple and Microsoft aren't the same as Google.
They DO.
How can you defend a company like Google il beyond my understanding....
It's beyond me you wouldn't more carefully check before proclaiming so vehemently that someone else is wrong. The point I was making clear to the OP, who like you was under a mistaken impression, is that Google does not scan enterprise GMail for ad purposes. My post was completely accurate.
FWIW nearly all email providers, including big ones like Apple and Microsoft, will read machine scan content to track spam, malware and in some cases illegal content, but I've no idea how many also do so to assist with advertising. Google of course is one of the latter as would be Yahoo, Earthlink and AOL. [/B.
Yep, there isn't anyone actually READING your emails, but they are selling your habits nonetheless .... and NO, Apple and Microsoft aren't the same as Google.
Well gosh we agree other than the selling your habits part. What they do is sell ad placement based on their access to your anonymized and bundled interests. Big companies with good reputations like BMW, Whole Foods and yes even Apple, along with millions of smaller companies with various agendas use those Google ad services to market their businesses and products to folks like you or me that are more likely to be interested.
That would presume of course that Google's understanding of who "we" are is accurate. In my own case it is not as they see me a a mish-mash of a few different family members mixed with the occasional friend who for simplicity generally use my computer devices logged in under my profile rather than their theirs. TBH there may be a couple of friendlies here at AI who factually know more about me than Google does.
IMHO the only legitimate fear we might have about Google is that someday someone might hack their systems and get access to profiles with personally identifiable information that could include even log-in/passwords. No doubt they have a lot but Google themselves is not willingly parting with anything they might have, even anonymized.
And while that is absolutely a legitimate concern it applies just as equally to a number of companies, particularly big techs with big cloud services. Even there those techs probably have less sensitive personal information than the data brokers who routinely buy your personal prescription data from your pharmacy, financial information from your bank and credit card providers, and driving/claim histories from government agencies and insurers. And what do they do with all that data they buy that includes your health info, prescription records, finances, employers past and present, home address, how large and how many rooms, who you work for, your spouse's name, your kids and where they go to school, perhaps your siblings/parents and in some cases your closest friends? Why resell it of course silly rabbit.
And you really see anonymized ads as your big privacy demon?? The ones who work hard at getting you to focus in the wrong direction are doing a fine job aren't' they? You probably don't even know they exist. Get out and do a little reading and research if privacy is really such a big concern of yours. Then spread the word and do everyone a real favor. [@]Blah64[/@] and I have been the two loudest here and the more voices heard the more likely the data aggregators can't hide in the shadows as easily.
It's beyond me you wouldn't more carefully check before proclaiming so vehemently that someone else is wrong. The point I was making clear to the OP, who like you was under a mistaken impression, is that Google does not scan enterprise GMail for ad purposes. My post was completely accurate.
Nope, you also wrote STUDENTS ACCOUNTS, not only enterprise , and I demonstrated they got caught scanning STUDENTS ACCOUNTS ....
Nope, you also wrote STUDENTS ACCOUNTS, not only enterprise , and I demonstrated they got caught scanning STUDENTS ACCOUNTS ....
Google can't be trusted.
They don't scan student accounts either. I don't think either you or the OP were talking about use'ta, could'a, would'a but instead saying they DO.
Comments
Actually some tracking can be done simply with a "pixel" which is, literally, a one pixel, transparent image embedded on the page.
How 1990s. Nobody does that anymore. You would have to parse your logs and then integrate it with your database. People used to use that for page count but it is useless for tracking behavior of the user. It is not cookie based, only IP based which does not take into account mobile users whose IP changes several times a day.
Not true.
Again, not true.
Log integration isn't required. Just something that detects the GET and does something with the details from the GET which can have a lot encoded in the path.
The pixel can be used to set/get cookies.
Simpler than you imagine.
Please find me a page from a modern high profile website that employs that technique. I would be interested to view the HTML source. I was under the assumption that the 1-pixel technique became obsolete a decade or more ago.
Again if you are doing something with the GET request outside of the logs then you are using Javascript which relates back to my original comment to use Ajax to track user behavior into a database. Or, if you are using a scripting platform such as php to interact with the database then you are certainly not an external third party ad broker.
1. Browser makes GET request for pixel to server. Includes any cookies previously set from that domain.
If there is a previous cookie why bother sending a pixel? Just refresh the cookie.
https://developers.facebook.com/ads/blog/post/2015/06/10/upgrades-to-conversion-tracking/
Could be a couple of reasons: Add some information to the cookie for example. But really, most likely, I just want to know that I've seen you before (hence the cookie). I probably do something like try to give YOU a unique ID and then can detect when and where you visit if my pixel is on multiple sites (which, if I'm a data/behavioral tracking service, I probably am). All of that is obviously more involved. But the basic mechanics of the pixel are actually pretty simple (and don't require Javascript).
Don't get me wrong, they'd prefer to use JS (and will if it's enabled). But pixels are still widely used for certain approaches to tracking.
Should not be allowed to cross domain the cookie.
It's not cross-domain. The cookie is set for the domain of the pixel.
How exactly do you set a cookie without Javascript or PHP?
This is all part of the standard HTTP protocol.
As far as I know the HTTP cookie cannot be accessed by the server scripting language be it PHP or .Net. If your form data is saved so you can hit the back button, the server should not be able to access that data. Only if you set a browser cookie with Javascript or a server cookie such as in the registry, url, Flash or other methods like HTML5 local data can the server access that data.
It can be. In fact it's used all the time. In fact it's how most websites keep you logged in from session to session: They do a "Set-Cookie" with a cookie named something like "logged_in" or "user_id" and the value is your unique user ID with that website. Then when you return it gets that cookie and knows you're still logged in. Obviously the specific behavior varies from site to site. But that's the "Reader's Digest version".
Understood, however this discussion has wandered into another topic. My original comment was that a 1-pixel image in straight HTML without JS or PHP, etc is useless to do any precise or useful user tracking. The 1-pixel image is no different than serving an ad. You need JS to make it useful to the ad broker.
Don't like ads? Don't visit websites with ads.
This mental illness is the reason people are allowing their rights to be stolen. This is in no way an argument.
Oh, and on the subject of cookies, is there a cookie blacklist utility for OS X’s Safari?
I’m going to guess at the length of time that has passed since I last cleared out my cookies. Given the state of my depression and the dilation of time due to my memory loss, let’s go with just over a month. In that time, I’ve gone from ~50 cookies (kept from sites I actually want) to over 1000 today.
Seriously, why does this have to be couched in terms of "war" or some kind of epic battle of good vs. evil?
Seems simple enough: Don't like ads? Don't visit websites with ads. If you still want to visit those sites with an ad blocker enabled and they, reasonably, ask you to turn it off, stop visiting.
Enough people do this, the publishers will adjust in some way...perhaps offering a subscription model.
This isn't "war". This isn't "good vs. evil." It's simply a business model being tested and challenged.
This ABSOLUTELY IS good vs evil, since ads have became more and more aggressive over the time, at the point that actual content are hardly enjoyable on some websites, and your mobile data plan take a tangible hit just to visit a website.
This is a war.
With perhaps 32 Billion GMail messages flowing between Google servers every day (16% of the estimated total 205B daily emails across all services) "read" would be highly unlikely. Machine scan and keyword index would be more accurate. FWIW nearly all email providers, including big ones like Apple and Microsoft, will read machine scan content to track spam, malware and in some cases illegal content, but I've no idea how many also do so to assist with advertising. Google of course is one of the latter as would be Yahoo, Earthlink and AOL.
There are very few email services that do not scan (sometimes broadly written as "read") your messages, and they are all relatively small and unknown. They certainly would not be appropriate for the average home user IMHO.
You are being naive.
Google's core business is data mining.....
Yep, there isn't anyone actually READING your emails, but they are selling your habits nonetheless .... and NO, Apple and Microsoft aren't the same as Google.
Yep, there isn’t anyone actually READING your emails…
Their algorithms are, though. Google knows the content of your messages.
I didn't think you were. I just had no idea what I had said about "WaPo". Now I know.
FWIW other articles are saying the blocking is intermittent for now.
http://www.geekwire.com/2015/use-an-ad-blocker-the-washington-post-is-now-probably-blocking-you/
That article is from September. As of today the WaPo website is working with AdBlocker enable ...
As I read it Google doesn't scan (index) student, government or corporate GMail accounts for ad purposes.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/03/13/26google.h33.html
They DO.
How can you defend a company like Google is beyond my understanding....
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/03/13/26google.h33.html
They DO.
Correction - they DID. Following that lawsuit they stopped scanning and showing adverts for student accounts.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/01/google-stops-scanning-student-emails-california-lawsuit
Correction - they DID. Following that lawsuit they stopped scanning and showing adverts for student accounts.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/01/google-stops-scanning-student-emails-california-lawsuit
... until someone will discover they are doing something like that again ...
Well gosh we agree other than the selling your habits part. What they do is sell ad placement based on their access to your anonymized and bundled interests. Big companies with good reputations like BMW, Whole Foods and yes even Apple, along with millions of smaller companies with various agendas use those Google ad services to market their businesses and products to folks like you or me that are more likely to be interested.
That would presume of course that Google's understanding of who "we" are is accurate. In my own case it is not as they see me a a mish-mash of a few different family members mixed with the occasional friend who for simplicity generally use my computer devices logged in under my profile rather than their theirs. TBH there may be a couple of friendlies here at AI who factually know more about me than Google does.
IMHO the only legitimate fear we might have about Google is that someday someone might hack their systems and get access to profiles with personally identifiable information that could include even log-in/passwords. No doubt they have a lot but Google themselves is not willingly parting with anything they might have, even anonymized.
And while that is absolutely a legitimate concern it applies just as equally to a number of companies, particularly big techs with big cloud services. Even there those techs probably have less sensitive personal information than the data brokers who routinely buy your personal prescription data from your pharmacy, financial information from your bank and credit card providers, and driving/claim histories from government agencies and insurers. And what do they do with all that data they buy that includes your health info, prescription records, finances, employers past and present, home address, how large and how many rooms, who you work for, your spouse's name, your kids and where they go to school, perhaps your siblings/parents and in some cases your closest friends? Why resell it of course silly rabbit.
And you really see anonymized ads as your big privacy demon?? The ones who work hard at getting you to focus in the wrong direction are doing a fine job aren't' they? You probably don't even know they exist. Get out and do a little reading and research if privacy is really such a big concern of yours. Then spread the word and do everyone a real favor. [@]Blah64[/@] and I have been the two loudest here and the more voices heard the more likely the data aggregators can't hide in the shadows as easily.
Here's a good place to start. With all this current talk of privacy and data-mining how is it that this study from the FTC has largely remained unmentioned in the media? I have a guess....
https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/reports/data-brokers-call-transparency-accountability-report-federal-trade-commission-may-2014/140527databrokerreport.pdf
It's beyond me you wouldn't more carefully check before proclaiming so vehemently that someone else is wrong. The point I was making clear to the OP, who like you was under a mistaken impression, is that Google does not scan enterprise GMail for ad purposes. My post was completely accurate.
Nope, you also wrote STUDENTS ACCOUNTS, not only enterprise , and I demonstrated they got caught scanning STUDENTS ACCOUNTS ....
Google can't be trusted.
They don't.