Tuesday 4 June 2013

Ghostery, it's better than nothing or is it

Ghostery is probably better than nothing but several facts exist.
  1. Ghostery filters are updated by Ghostery company Evidon, Inc themselves.  This feel a little closed source for me, it means that they could white list some trackers if they felt like. 
  2. Ghostery is closed source, they claim that you can look thought their xpi package to see what is inside it, but that is like M$ asking their someone to look into their exe file to see what is inside.
  3. You may not disassemble or reverse engineer Ghostery for any purpose other than reviewing the code for personal edification, so much for trying to be open source soon...
  4. Participating in the GhostRank program (default)  This is a no-brainer.
  5. Merger, Sale, or Reorganization of Evidon
    If Evidon should ever file for bankruptcy, or have its assets sold to or merged with another entity, information Evidon receives from you, from the Website, is an Evidon asset and may be transferred.
  6. And this: http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/31/ghostery-a-web-tracking-blocker-that-actually-helps-the-ad-industry/

    "After all, the thinking goes, many ad networks sell their advertisements via real-time bidding, so they often lack a clear idea of where their tags are appearing. In short, online ad networks are just as hungry for information about web users as they are for data about themselves. Ghostery gives them that information."
    "This gives Evidon a clear target market and even clearer plan of attack: Use Ghostery users to build the tracker database, then turn around and license the data to ad networks who can use the data to bolster their own efforts."


So in essence, the use of Ghostery is helping ads networks find better and more covert ways to track you online presence and these guys are using you to make a nice little database....
I'm not bothering to go any further and look at the chatter on the wire, do not install it.  Stick with adblock-lite +Fanboy Adblock List + Tracking List + Annoyance Block List.

If you still don't get it, too bad your a sad panda.


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