I’m sure you’ve heard that the Senate, then House, voted to allow Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to sell your browsing and Internet usage data. This is astounding, and has huge implications for each and every one of us that has any Internet usage that might be looked at askance by whomever decides to license your usage data.
So let’s cover some basics on technology, the potential uses for your usage data, and some ideas of what you can do to protect yourself.
I’m sure you’re aware of basic Internet tracking tech, but I’ll begin there and grow in complexity. I expect I’ll cover many of thee issues in Part 2 of my post on tech and protecting yourself, but Adam and Major Major Major Major brought up the idea, and I agreed to write this post today as it’s timely.
The Technology
When you connect to the Internet from your home or on your mobile device, you are using an ISP. When you use someone else’s Internet connection, you’re using their ISP. For the most part, your usage from your home or mobile ISP is the ISP of concern for this post.
When you connect to the Internet, you get an Internet Protocol (IP) address. It’s 4 block of numbers (XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX), and for remote computers/servers, it’s usually expressed as a name to make it easier on us humans. So, for example, the IP address for www.balloon-juice.com is 63.247.137.229.
When you use a web browser, websites put cookies on your machine. They are used to track your site visits, page visits, etc. Although cookies come from different sources, many are actually parts of syndicates or networks and so all members of a syndicate can see what people did not just on their sites, but on others’ too. And so should you enter your name on one site that’s a member of the syndicate, then all members can link your behavior to your name (or any other info you enter online).
Don’t get me started on Facebook or Google – they track everybody everywhere possible and link all kinds of data they license or buy so that one of them most likely has the biggest db (and the other, the second-biggest) of people and their online AND offline behavior and characteristics in the world. That’s a different post.
There are other ways to track behavior – “blank pixel” technology”, browser fingerprinting, mobile device supercookies, and so many more things. Did you know that when you open an email and you see a picture, that’s often used to inform the email sender that you’ve opened the email?
And of course there’s lots of folks combining disparate data to develop even more thorough profiles of people and their online and offline behavior to drive psychographic analysis and predictions on behavior.
There are truly a myriad examples I could list, but let’s focus on the focus of today’s post: your ISP. I’ll use home usage as the scenario for the rest of this post.