http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704679204575646704100959546.html
Very targeted ads.
And a huge lawsuit waiting to happen
I think that the New IE may block the fingerprinting Idea...
I think the big guys will honour this but like anything in life, the little guys may not.
fook the little guys they can't hurt us and they can't become the big guys while running that spy crap
Ultimately, the only way I can see this working out is a combined push / pull model. Since we pretty much have to accept that advertising exists, it would be nice if it was relevant, since the alternative is to be bombarded with ads for things we have no interest in.
However, we are reluctant to hand over *all* of our data to any third party voluntarily (yes, there are plenty of numpty internet users who do just put all sorts of stuff online, but privacy / security issues are becoming a concern of even the newest users. Media hysteria does have a purpose after all), and I think that trend will continue, as even the positive uses of such data, like highly targetted ads, make people aware of the implications.
The only workable answer that I can see is that your personal data is held by you, and you allow limited access to it, for your purposes. Search engines, shopping sites etc, become big blobs of structured data, and it's your application of your personal data that "makes sense" of it, and renders a unique-to-you view of that data. Of course, SEs, shoppings sites etc, will hate this idea, since it takes a lot of their power away, but I think that's the way things will work out, eventually
hand over *all* of our data to any third party voluntarily
think ISPs, mobile operators, sky tv etc...
This browser fingerprinting method can't be blocked the way cookies can. Test it out yourself. The EFF has a tool called Panopticlick that will tell you if your browser fingerprint is unique: http://panopticlick.eff.org/ The only way I could get a non-unique fingerprint was to use a virtual machine with IE running in it with nothing else installed (This worked with a Ubuntu boot disk as well). The average Joe doesn't stand a chance against this.
From the WSJ article:
Quote"I think cookies are a joke," Mr. Norris says. "The system is archaic and was invented by accident. We've outgrown it, and it's time for the next thing."
Quote from: bill on December 16, 2010, 04:52:54 AM
http://panopticlick.eff.org/
I find it creepy that they can list all my installed plugins, to say nothing of my installed system fonts. *grumble*
And xray body scanners are standard too, but still creepy. I didn't say "shocking" after all. heh
Honestly, I'm surprised cookies have lasted as long as they have. And, I'm honestly surprised it's taken this long to get something that uniquely identifies a browser from all others: there is simply so much money in advertising, that it's stupid *not* to develop something like this. If you had the only database in teh world with this kind of targeted ad information, imagine how much you could charge for it...
And the thing is, companies would pay for it...no questions.