A good overview of the state of UDID by Kim-Mai Cutler:
What Does A Post-UDID World Look Like For iPhone And iPad Developers? | TechCrunch.
A good overview of the state of UDID by Kim-Mai Cutler:
What Does A Post-UDID World Look Like For iPhone And iPad Developers? | TechCrunch.
This is some innovative stuff:
A friend-of-a-friend tipped us off over the weekend to a rather clever way that Facebook is taking it one step further: non-existent sound files.
via Facebook Knows When You Open Their Emails. How? Creepy Silent Sounds… | PandoDaily.
I see numerous emerging trends related to the explosive growth of smartphones. One of these is “context”. Many people will have seen how location-enabled applications have been able to generate highly relevant and timely content. Suppose I permit Google Maps to know my location. Then when I enter coffee into the search bar, it should “push” me the most relevant coffee shop: in this case, the closest. As social networks such as Google+, Facebook and Twitter integrate further with other services, your friends and followers, the people you align yourself with, can provide content with improved depth. This context shows not just the closest coffee shop, but the one which my friends enjoy visiting the most.
via Business: Where angels will tread | The Economist.
Sounds similar to the vision for adware circa ten years ago.
The ad revenues go to the firms behind the software applications. These include Sambreel Holdings LLC of Carlsbad, Calif. Sambreel, founded in 2008, makes about a dozen Internet browser applications. It counts more than 21 million users of its applications and says it is growing by more than two million a month.
C|Net’s Download.Com site has started wrapping their Nmap downloads (as well as other free software like VLC) in a trojan installer which does things like installing a sketchy “StartNow” toolbar, changing the user’s default search engine to Microsoft Bing, and changing their home page to Microsoft’s MSN.
via Nmap Hackers: C|Net Download.Com is now bundling Nmap with malware!.
This used to be called spyware:
Still a new generation of Web sites like Dscover.me, Sitesimon.com and Voyurl.com is banking on our willingness to take that next step toward taking our lives public: namely, by automatically tracking personal browsing histories for public viewing.
via Sharing Browsing Histories Feels Risky and Fun – NYTimes.com.
“That’s how we track everything,” she continued. “We watch what apps you download, how frequently you use them, how much time you spend on them, how deep into the app you go.” The Wall Street Journal goes on to note that the data collected by [Traffic Marketplace] is “aggregated and not linked to an individual.”
via Hello, my name is: 9649e796e8b23900dc9629a18f2d47306430e62f | BGR | Boy Genius Report.
So it appears that some ad networks, including Interclick, have already operationalized the collection of data from the CSS bug which allows sites to harvest your browser history. I am only surprised that it took so long before someone got caught using this.
As these things often seem to do these days, the trail led back to an ad network. Interclick.com was one of three ad networks found to be deploying this tracking script on websites.
So firms have been using Adobe Flash cookies to respawn regular cookies after a user deletes them. Specific Media is the latest firm to get charged for this:
Specificmedia, one of the net’s largest ad-serving and tracking companies, has been hit with a federal lawsuit accusing the company of violating computer intrusion laws by secretly re-creating cookies deleted by users.
via Ad Firm Sued for Allegedly Re-Creating Deleted Cookies | Epicenter | Wired.com.
What a debacle. Is there a worse way for things to unfold after you file for IPO?
Demand Media’s Bad Week: Accusations of Malware, Lies and Plunging Traffic – DailyFinance.
As CEO of Intermix — a company that owned MySpace, at the time the hottest social network around — the valuation of the company was hurt by an investigation by New York’s then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.
Spitzer’s beef with Intermix? Running a network of websites and marketing services that secretly installed spyware onto millions of computers. Spitzer
