Disney, others hit with website tracking lawsuit

[crazy4wdw]

From the Orlando Sentinel:

Disney, others hit with website tracking lawsuit

If you’ve been to Disney.com recently, has the company been tracking your visits to other websites, too?

That’s what a federal lawsuit has suggested, saying that Disney — as well as Warner Bros. Records, Ustream, Demand Media and others — knowingly used widget-advertising company Clearspring Technologies to illegally track website users.

The lawsuit was filed a week ago in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and was brought by a group of minors and their parents. According to a Cnet report, the plaintiffs contend that Disney and other companies using Clearspring knew that the company was tracking users as they went to other websites, and the information gleaned from that tracking had the potential of exposing a lot of information about the users, such as web-viewing habits, race, gender, financial information, family relationships and health information.

Information collected from those users also could have been sold to third parties, according to reports about the lawsuit.

Clearspring, according to reports, was able to track computer users by installing Flash cookies on users’ machines without their knowledge. Investigations have shown that Flash-technology cookies aren’t necessarily deleted when computer users remove traditional cookies from their browsers. Also, while typical web cookies can contain 4 kbs of information, reports have shown that Flash-based cookies can contain up to 100 kbs of info. Adobe’s Flash cookies also can be installed on both PCs and Macs and in a variety of web browsers.

Disney has not responded to the suit, and the plaintiffs have asked for unspecified damages. A similar complaint was filed against one of Clearspring’s competitors in July.

Steven Ford, Orlando Sentinel

 

[FireDancer]

Flash cookies are all over the internet. I use Firefox with the Better Privacy add-on which auto deletes Flash Cookies every 2 seconds. It is an easy fix and solves the problem. It is amazing how little people know about Internet privacy.

 

[nytimez]

Flash cookies are all over the internet. I use Firefox with the Better Privacy add-on which auto deletes Flash Cookies every 2 seconds. It is an easy fix and solves the problem. It is amazing how little people know about Internet privacy.

Doesn't justify or excuse the practice especially if it's in contradiction to the TOS.

 

[Oglet]

It doesn't even really bother me that much, not like im doing anything of national security, importance or anything. I understand where people are coming from but in all honesty there are far worse things going on out there than some tracking cookies.

 

[FireDancer]

Doesn't justify or excuse the practice especially if it's in contradiction to the TOS.

Flash cookies are part of the internet, just like regular cookies. They are not going away and if you educate yourself they are pretty easy to avoid. The level of cookie control in modern browsers, especially Firefox with the proper plug-ins, gives the user almost complete control of what is stored on their computer. Very few sites set short expiration intervals on any cookie they put on your system.

There are some things that are just not going to happen on the Internet because it was not designed for security, it was designed for connectivity.

 

[skiingfast]

If this is a problem, why would google exist?

 

[nytimez]

Flash cookies are part of the internet, just like regular cookies. They are not going away and if you educate yourself they are pretty easy to avoid. The level of cookie control in modern browsers, especially Firefox with the proper plug-ins, gives the user almost complete control of what is stored on their computer. Very few sites set short expiration intervals on any cookie they put on your system.

There are some things that are just not going to happen on the Internet because it was not designed for security, it was designed for connectivity.

If a site you visit says they are not collecting or tracking that data, they shouldn't collect or track that data. Period.

 

[FireDancer]

If a site you visit says they are not collecting or tracking that data, they shouldn't collect or track that data. Period.

You're right, they shouldn't. But why not just be proactive and block it on your end instead of cross your fingers and hope (knowing so many sites do it anyway)? Even if Disney in particular didn't track anyone via Flash cookies the Internet is full of sites the do and don't have any TOS that says they won't.