Google Begins Behavioral Targeting Ad Program « EFF by Kurt Opsahl

Published at EFF, 11 March , 2009 News Update

Author: Kurt Opsahl

Today Google launched its behavioral targeting ad program, which it calls "interest-based advertising." This move has been widely expected once Google completed its $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick one year ago today.

The issues with behavioral advertising have been with us for over a decade (DoubleClick was founded in 1996, and privacy issues soon followed), and have grown as more people use more services online and more information has become available about your online behavior. Many, including EFF, are concerned about behavioral targeting because it means that information about how you use the web is collected, stored and associated with a cookie on your browser, which can track you across different websites and online services. One way to help protect your privacy is to clear cookies regularly. However, this is insufficient, because a new cookie would be written the next time your browser loaded a banner ad.

The most privacy protective solution would be to have behavioral targeting systems be based on the user's opt-in. To no one's surprise, Google has not gone down that road ("'Offering advertising on an opt-in basis goes against the economic model of the Internet,' Google spokesperson Christine Chen told the IDG News Service"), and we are not aware of any major player in online advertising that has an opt-in targeting system. Google has, however, done some things that make opt-out quite a bit better.

Six Tips to Protect Your Search Privacy « EFF

Published at EFF, September 2006
Google, MSN Search, Yahoo!, AOL, and most other search engines collect and store records of your search queries. If these records are revealed to others, they can be embarrassing or even cause great harm. Would you want strangers to see searches that reference your online reading habits, medical history, finances, sexual orientation, or political affiliation?

Recent events highlight the danger that search logs pose. In August 2006, AOL published 650,000 users' search histories on its website.¹ Though each user's logs were only associated with a random ID number, several users' identities were readily discovered based on their search queries. For instance, the New York Times connected the logs of user No. 4417749 with 62 year-old Thelma Arnold. These records exposed, as she put it, her "whole personal life."²

Disclosures like AOL's are not the only threats to your privacy. Unfortunately, it may be all too easy for the government or individual litigants to subpoena your search provider and get access to your search history. For example, in January 2006, Yahoo!, AOL, and Microsoft reportedly cooperated with a broad Justice Department request for millions of search records. Although Google successfully challenged this request,³ the lack of clarity in current law leaves your online privacy at risk.

Suveilance Selfdefence Project « EFF [part 4]

From EFF.org

Defensive Technology

If you are looking for basic technical information on how to protect the privacy of your data — whether it's on your own computer, on the wire, or in the hands of a third party — you've come to the right place. Although we hope you'll have the time to review all of the information in the SSD guide, if you're in a hurry to get to the technical details, this is where you can read articles that will explain:

• the basics of the relevant technologies, such as the Internet Basics and Encryption Basics articles


• how to improve the security of different communication applications, such as your web browsers, email systems and IM clients


• how to protect your privacy by using defensive technologies such as secure deletion software, file and disk encryption software, and virtual private networks


• the overarching security threat posed by malware, how to evaluate that threat, and how to reduce it

Just remember: technology changes quickly. We'll be doing our best to keep these articles updated to reflect current developments, but in the meantime, you should take the time to review information from multiple sources before making any serious security decisions.

Suveilance Selfdefence Project « EFF [part 3]

From EFF.org

What Can I Do To Protect Myself?

When we were talking about how to defend yourself against subpoenas and search warrants, we said, "If you don't have it, they can't get it." Of course, that's only partially true: if you don't have it, they can't get it from you. But that doesn't mean they might not be able to get copies of your communications or detailed records about them from someone else, such as your communications service providers or the people and services that you communicate with. Indeed, as we outlined in the last section, it's much easier as a legal matter for the government to obtain information from these third parties - often without probable cause or any notice to you. So, you also need to remember this lesson: "If someone else has stored it, they can get it." If you let a third party store your voicemail or email, store your calendar and contacts, back up your computer, or log your communications traffic, that information will be relatively easy for the government to secretly obtain, especially compared to trying it to get it from you directly. So, we'll discuss in this section how to minimize the content that you store with third parties. We've also asked you to "encrypt, encrypt, encrypt!" in the previous sections about protecting data on your computer and while you are communicating. The same holds true when protecting against the government getting your information from other people. Although ideally you will avoid storing sensitive information with third parties, using encryption to protect the data that you do store - such as the emails you store with your provider, or the files you back up online - can provide a strong line of defense. We'll talk in this section about how to do that. Communications content that you've chosen to store with a service provider isn't the only issue, though. There are also the records that those third parties are creating about your interactions with their services. Practically everything you do online will create records, as will your phone calls. So your best defense is to think before you communicate:

Suveilance Selfdefence Project « EFF [part 2]

From EFF.org

Electronic Eavesdropping is Legally Hard for the Government, But Technically Easy

As you learned in the last section, wiretapping is legally difficult for the government: it must obtain a hard-to-get intercept order or "super-warrant" from a court, subject to strict oversight and variety of strong privacy protections. However, wiretapping is typically very technically easy for the government. For example, practically anyone within range of your laptop's wireless signal, including the government, can intercept your wireless Internet communications. Similarly, practically anyone within range of your cell phone's radio signal, including the government, can — with a few hundred bucks to buy the right equipment — eavesdrop on your cell phone conversations.

As far as communications that travel over telecommunications' companies cables and wires rather than (or in addition to) traveling over the air, the government has very sophisticated wiretapping capabilities. For example, using a nationwide surveillance system called "DCSNet" ("DCS" stands for "Digital Collection System") that is tied into key telecommunications switches across the country, FBI agents can from the comfort of their field offices "go up" on a particular phone line and start intercepting or pen-trap tapping wireline phone calls, cellular phone calls, SMS text messages and push-to-talk communications, or start tracking a cell phone's location, at a moment's notice. The government is believed to have similar capabilities when it comes to Internet communications. The extensive and powerful capabilities of the DCSNet, first uncovered in government documents that EFF obtained in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit (details at http://www.eff.org/issues/foia/061708CKK), are well-summarized in the Wired.com article "Point, Click...Eavesdrop: How the FBI Wiretap Net Operates".

Suveilance Selfdefence Project « EFF [part 1]

From EFF.org

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has created this Surveillance Self-Defense site to educate the American public about the law and technology of government surveillance in the United States, providing the information and tools necessary to evaluate the threat of surveillance and take appropriate steps to defend against it.

Surveillance Self-Defense (SSD) exists to answer two main questions: What can the government legally do to spy on your computer data and communications? And what can you legally do to protect yourself against such spying?

After an introductory discussion of how you should think about making security decisions — it's all about risk management — we'll be answering those two questions for three types of data:

First, we're going to talk about the threat to the data stored on your computer posed by searches and seizures by law enforcement, as well as subpoenas demanding your records.

Second, we're going to talk about the threat to your data on the wire — that is, your data as it's being transmitted — posed by wiretapping and other real-time surveillance of your telephone and Internet communications by law enforcement.

Third, we're going to describe the information about you that is stored by third parties like your phone company and your Internet service provider, and how law enforcement officials can get it.