We know that when we go online we are being shot with tracking darts and having our every movement followed. For the most part, our names are not associated with that data, thus giving us some privacy protection. But is it still an invasion of our privacy even if our names aren't explicitly attached? And what if the little shred of fabric separating our identities from our online browsing was torn away like Janet Jackson's top during the Superbowl halftime show? Alexis Madrigal ponders online privacy, creepiness, and the mechanics of the hustling, bustling online ad industry in an interesting and lengthy piece:
[W]e increasingly live two lives: a physical one in which your name, social security number, passport number, and driver's license are your main identity markers, and one digital, in which you have dozens of identity markers, which are known to you and me as cookies. These markers allow data gatherers to keep tabs on you without your name. Those cookie numbers, which are known only to the entities that assigned them to you, are persistent markers of who you are, but they remain unattached to your physical identity through your name. There is a (thin) wall between the self that buys health insurance and the self that searches for health-related information online.
Using Mozilla's Collusion tool, Madrigal cataloged the 105 companies that had tagged him as he wandered the wilds of the Web, collecting and selling information about his habits. When he tried to "opt out" of that tracking using the tools offered by the ad/marketing companies, they didn't work.
"There is no way, through the companies' own self-regulatory apparatus, to stop being tracked online. None," writes Madrigal (annoyed). This doesn't bode well for a 'Do Not Track' option that relies on industry to self-enforce, since tracking companies seems to think its suffices to offer consumers the right to opt out of being targeted with ads based on your online behavior, not opting out of having that behavior tracked.
In the end, though, Madrigal comes to that dilemma of our times: We want a free Internet.
[T]hese are the tools that allow websites to eke out a tiny bit more money than they otherwise would. I am all too aware of how difficult it is for media businesses to survive in this new environment. Sure, we could all throw up paywalls and try to make a lot more money from a lot fewer readers. But that would destroy what makes the web the unique resource in human history that it is. I want to keep the Internet healthy, which really does mean keeping money flowing from advertising.
In other words: Don't hate the tracka, hate the game?
