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In the 15 years since the World Wide Web brought the Internet to the masses, the most successful companies have been those that collect information about users and use it to sell things. Google, for instance, has confirmed that it keeps track of search queries sent from a particular IP address. (A spokesman said the company anonymizes IP addresses associated with search queries after nine months and cookies after 18 months.)
Companies are loath to talk about what information they track, but internal compliance manuals for law enforcement for Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft reviewed by The Washington Post show that their data collection is much more extensive than users might believe based on what they themselves can access.
For example: Microsoft tracks the Xbox LIVE start and end dates and times for game-playing and notes the game played, such as “SW: Jedi Academy.” Yahoo keeps chat and instant messenger logs for 45 to 60 days and notes the time/date and IP address for when content is added or deleted to someone’s profile or to its Flickr photo service.
Facebook’s data collection is among the most detailed.
For every user id, Facebook keeps a log of the IP address that accessed the account, the date and time, and what exactly the user did — clicking on an advertisement, looking at someone else’s profile, posting a photo or sending a message to a friend, etc.
Companies are loath to talk about what information they track, but internal compliance manuals for law enforcement for Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft reviewed by The Washington Post show that their data collection is much more extensive than users might believe based on what they themselves can access.
For example: Microsoft tracks the Xbox LIVE start and end dates and times for game-playing and notes the game played, such as “SW: Jedi Academy.” Yahoo keeps chat and instant messenger logs for 45 to 60 days and notes the time/date and IP address for when content is added or deleted to someone’s profile or to its Flickr photo service.
Facebook’s data collection is among the most detailed.
For every user id, Facebook keeps a log of the IP address that accessed the account, the date and time, and what exactly the user did — clicking on an advertisement, looking at someone else’s profile, posting a photo or sending a message to a friend, etc.
Putting Online Privacy in Perspective by Tim O’Reilly
