[WEB4LIB] Re: www.backflip.com service - NICE

[Jenny Levine]

On Wed, 18 Oct 2000, Julie James wrote:
> Am I naïve to accept TRUSTe's assurances re their privacy practices?
> http://www.truste.com/users/users_lookup.html#B

	I don't think naive is the right word.  I'm trying to find the 
thread from the other mailing list, but now I recall that the problem 
wasn't with Backflip so much as with AdForce.  I think AdForce was 
tracking user movements based on the ads they are serving up to sites 
such as Backflip (much like DoubleClick was when they were criticized 
so heavily a few months ago).  So the issue was more that you would sign 
in to Backflip, see an ad, and then be tracked without knowing it using a 
cookie on your hard drive.
	The Backflip privacy policy is pretty straightforward and they 
acknowledge AdForce directly while disclaiming responsibility for what 
other sites do.  And even AdForce's privacy policy doesn't sound that bad 
as they claim to not track or sell your personal information.  However, 
their policy also discusses a partnership with a company called "Engage" 
that may take "non-personally identifiable information" to "create such 
interest profiles".  So they shuttle off some responsibility, too, and 
who knows what Entrust's policy says (I didn't follow it up that far).
	I know a lot of people are concerned about this type of tracking, 
especially after that toy company went bust and put their customer list 
up for sale.  So naive may not be the right word, but I personally am 
looking into some of the privacy software just to see what is going on 
for myself.  Then I can decide if I consider it harmless or not.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Jenny Levine					125 Tower Drive
Internet Development Specialist			Burr Ridge, IL 60521
Suburban Library System				+1 (630) 734 5141
http://www.sls.lib.il.us/			levinej at sls.lib.il.us


On Wed, 18 Oct 2000, Julie James wrote:

> Ernest & Jenny, et.al.:
> 
> Thanks for the tip on Backflip - I use three different computers regularly,
> and this may be just the service I need to keep all my bookmarks straight.
> 
> Am I naïve to accept TRUSTe's assurances re their privacy practices?
> http://www.truste.com/users/users_lookup.html#B
> 
> The cookies look pretty normal to me.
> 
> Julie
> ~~~
> Julie James
> Technology Consultant
> The Library of Virginia
> 804/692-0800  
> jjames at lva.lib.va.us  
> 
> > 	I was about to highlight this service to our member libraries 
> > because they, too, could let users Backflip their pages 
> > (especially local 
> > history pages, newsletter articles, etc.), but a privacy 
> > concern came up 
> > on another list I'm on.  The poster had noticed some tracking 
> > done once 
> > she accessed the Backflip service, so she stopped using it.  I share 
> > these concerns, but I haven't had a chance to follow up on it 
> > yet.   
>