Online privacy practices ‘poor’
p2pnet.net News:- The privacy practices of 72% of 464 North American companies surveyed earlier this year are "poor" when it comes to reusing personal Net data for marketing purposes, says CNET News.
Boston’s Customer Respect Group, which conducted the survey, rated only 42% "good" with respect to keeping customer data collected online out of the hands of other companies.
“Pharmaceutical and health care firms performed the worst in the privacy study, with an average overall score of 5.4 out of 10,” says CNET.
“Others at the bottom of the list include insurance firms and companies in the food, beverage and tobacco industries. Airlines scored the highest with a rating of 7.3, followed by computer companies.
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See:-
CNET – Companies dinged on Web privacy, August 23, 2005
August 25th, 2005 at 6:33 am
I’ve always had a problem with spyware and collecting your data for whatever purpose. It makes it even worse when those collecting that data doesn’t safe guard it in any manner. Every one of those collection companies want to protray themselves as collecting non-personal info. Ip numbers where those sources come from are hardly non-personal.
You have to take care of your security, if you don’t they won’t for sure. Spying on your computer is so prevalent on the net that those that don’t think security is an issue, often find that not only do their computers not run very fast but that their internet speeds don’t give up the advertised rates that they buy and pay for. Simply spyware eats it. Many are the tales of folks that do tech services, talking of how many spywares were found on someone’s computer who has no clue of security. I have heard tales of 1-300 spywares present on some of those computers. Have I seen that many myself? No, still the tales persist.
That’s alot of activity, no matter how you count it up. You can be sure that the **AA’s are getting fed some of that data; you know the price is right. Whether they purchase it directly or whether they purchase through third party isn’t going to make a hill of beans to those whose data is being given away.
This is one reason I moved to linux. Simply I dislike all the spyware and malware. The market is tremendous for gathering your data (for free) and using your bandwidth without your permission (also for free) and I for one resent it!
August 25th, 2005 at 1:40 pm
I made the switch years ago before Window95 came out. I dual booted for a while, but I’m happy to say that out of 35 computers I own, only one has a Winblows partition on it. I really don’t see the reason why I should PAY GOOD money for COMPANIES to sell my data.
Maybe it is time to start sending poisoned data to the servers that collect information from spyware infected programs. It is time to fight back!
August 28th, 2005 at 11:09 pm
I second that motion, as a Windows user since I primarily use PC’s for gaming… I am cursed with having to wipe spyware wherever I find it. If anyone knows how to sabotage any data sent please post a link to any and all sites that might offer info about it.