News & Comment
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How Fake News Got Personal. Setting the Record Straight
My mother's family are all from Aberdeenshire where I spent the best part of my childhood. We would relocate our company to Scotland in a heartbeat if it stays in the EU.
So, I was not happy when … more
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How Browsers Can Support Site-Specific User Control under the GDPR & e-Privacy Regulations using Do-Not-Track
A proposal for restricting user indentifiers to site-specific contexts.
The DNT Tracking Preference Expression document (TPE) allows for the registration and communication of site-specific consent, … more
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Do-Not-Track: The Key to Compliance with the ePrivacy and General Data Protection Regulations
The European Commission’s recent proposal for the new ePrivacy Regulation (EPR), like the ePrivacy Directive which it will replace, creates rules on how websites or service providers should process … more
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The Gemalto Debacle - Fraud, Mass Surveillance and E-Privacy
Recent reports reveal that the UK’s GCHQ has hacked into computers belonging to Dutch multinational Gemalto, to gain access to encryption keys used for mobile telecommunications. They did this by … more
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Discovered In The Wild: A New Method Bypassing Safari’s Third-Party Cookie Blocking.
Another method allowing targeted advertisers to avoid Safari third-party cookie blocking has been found on a UK website, implemented by a French AdTech company.I have pointed out before that an … more
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Google and the legal requirement for opt-in consent.
Yesterday’s announcement from the CPB, the Dutch DPA, that they were giving Google till the end of February to comply with the Data Protection Act is another sign that European laws on online … more
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The cookie is alive and kicking, not dead, but thankfully in Europe Google, Facebook etc. are still subject to law protecting our fundamental rights.
A number of posts have reported on the death of the cookie, like this one in VentureBeat, but, as Mark Twain famously said, "the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated".
SSO (and any log- … more
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Google, Ghostery and the limits of Ad Blocking.
On tracking some of the trackers some of the time.
Ghostery claims to show you “the invisible web” and block activity that could track your activity, but omits to report tracking by Google.
The … more
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The E-Privacy Directive and Do Not Track complement each other: both were designed to give individuals control over tracking irrespective of technology.
The e-privacy directive was designed is to give people control over tracking, i.e. you have to be asked for permission before collecting data about your web history. Of course, the technique most … more
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AddThis no longer using canvas fingerprinting on the White House or the Labour Party websites.
The AddThis script is no longer using canvas fingerprinting on any of the sites we have looked at. In July we found many sites that were using this technique, including the White House and the UK … more
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Our Take On WPP's Media Buyer, GroupM, Comments On Do Not Track
The world’s biggest advertising group, WPP, through their media buying subsidiary GroupM have just issued a comment to the Do Not Track Tracking Preference Expression public list.
Their position is … more
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WP29 Welcomes DoNotTrack, But Says Consent Still Required If DNT Unset.
The Article 29 Data Protection Working Party (WP29), an independent advisory body set up in 1995 under the auspices of the EU Data Protection Directive and composed of representatives of all European … more
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Is the Dutch DPA investigation of YD the beginning of the end for "AdChoices”?
Opt-In Or Opt-Out? Why Do Not Track And Respect For Fundamental Rights Will Save The Web
Imagine - you walk into a shoe shop and while you are looking at some trainers someone sneaks up and … more
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E-Privacy, Data Protection Law, and the Do Not Track signal.
The body responsible for Do Not Track (DNT), the W3C’s Tracking Protection Working Group will shortly be releasing the technical part of the standard in a process named Last Call (LC) when … more
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Ghostery + GhostRank (Evidon) – an Analysis by CookieQ.
Baycloud Systems sets the record straight.
For some time Evidon, formerly known as Better Advertising, – acquirer of the Ghostery ad blocking browser extension, have been publishing misleading … more
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Do Not Track set on over 12% of requests to sample sites in Europe.
Internet Explorer 10 now accounts for over 70% of all requests with DNT set.
The percentage of web requests with the DNT header set in our sample of European websites is approaching 13%
The … more
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Internet Explorer now responsible for a significant proportion of Do Not Track signals
Internet Explorer 10 compensates for declining Chrome DNT usage
The number of web requests to European websites from users of Internet Explorer is approaching 4% of the total. The percentage of DNT … more
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Field Fisher Waterhouse is wrong in its analysis of the draft Data Protection Regulation.
The law firm Field Fisher Waterhouse has been in the news recently in connection with the unprecedented level of lobbying activity directed against the new Data Protection Regulation, currently being … more
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Citizens vote for privacy by setting Do Not Track
European Data Protection Day Monday, Jan 28th, 2013.
The number of web requests to European websites from browsers with Do Not Track set is now over 7% of the total, and rising.
Take a look at our … more
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Our comment to "It’s not about cookies, it’s about privacy" post on Gov.UK GDS site.
Comment to GDS blog post "It’s not about cookies, it’s about privacy"
Mike O'Neill (@incloud) — 20/03/2012
It should be about respecting citizen’s privacy, not implementation convenience.
The … more
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A Comment about Google Analytics on GDS Gov.UK Blog
Our comment to Gov.UK blog post "Cookies on the Beta"
The Google Analytics (__utma) cookie is no more or less “intrusive” than any other piece of inert data. It is simply a number that is unique to … more
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A comment on "Online privacy and the ePrivacy directive"
Online privacy and the ePrivacy directive
Website publishers should not be told to “go ahead” if they want to use cookies. The law in most European jurisdictions require that consent is … more
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Navigating cookie privacy is getting legislators lost
Updating our original guest post for TechCrunch "Navigating cookie privacy is getting legislators lost"
The Internet, driven by technological innovation and the free market, has brought huge … more