The truth about online dictionaries and other sites

Jane Prusakova's picture
Submitted by Jane Prusakova on Sat, Jul 31 2010 - 10:25 AM

Dictionaries used to be for smart people. Ditto online dictionaries.
Not anymore.

Going to a popular online dictionary may make you smarter - but it'll also make your life an open book. Your online life, that is.

WSJ discovered that
A visit to the online dictionary site resulted in 234 files or programs being downloaded onto the Journal's test computer, 223 of which were from companies that track Web users.

That was last week. It's probably more now.
You have to wonder how many behavior-tracking tools you'll get if you follow the link above to the Wall Street Journal's page.

Jane Prusakova
Senior Consultant at Improving Enterprises
LinkedIn Info

Comments

jdunham's picture

I read that article when it

Submitted by jdunham on Mon, Aug 2 2010 - 12:49 PM.

I read that article when it came out. It was interesting in that it mentioned testing their own site, but made no mention that I saw of the result of that test. It left me believing that they are culprits themselves.

I was particularly shocked to learn that dictionary.com was the worst offender, since I've used that site any number of times. I'm not one of those people who's paranoid about cookie information selling me down the river, but I have to admit that I don't like it when tracking is done without my knowledge.

If anyone knows of a good utility to track the trackers, whether or not it actually blocks them, I'd sure like to give it a try.

--
Jerry Dunham
I'm not paranoid if they are really out to get me.

Jane Prusakova's picture

Apparently, software to

Submitted by Jane Prusakova on Mon, Aug 2 2010 - 12:57 PM.

Apparently, software to track the trackers is being developed, but nothing is stable/popular/mainstream yet.

A news item about this study mentioned that Safari browser does the best job of disabling tracking and informing the user.

Jane Prusakova
Senior Consultant at Improving Enterprises
LinkedIn Info

jdunham's picture

I tried Safari for Windows

Submitted by jdunham on Mon, Aug 2 2010 - 1:06 PM.

I tried Safari for Windows once upon a time and wasn't too impressed. (I was primarily running Opera at the time.) I suppose I ought to take another look at it.

What I'm really hoping for is a Firefox add on. Just don't tell me that to track the trackers I have to switch to Internet Exploder, as that runs poorly on my (XP) machine.

If you hear of something becoming stable and available, please post it here.

--
Jerry Dunham
Tired of being tracked without my permission