IP: More on Privacy issue - Alexa/Netscape partnership

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

Reply-To: <austin@zks.net>
From: "Austin Hill" <austin@zks.net>
To: <farber@cis.upenn.edu>

Hi Dave,

Thought your readers might be interested in this paper detailing the privacy
implications of the What's Related feature.

http://www.interhack.net/pubs/whatsrelated/


-Austin

_________________________________________________________________________
Austin Hill                                   Zero-Knowledge Systems Inc.
President                                                Montreal, Quebec
Phone: 514.286.2636 Ext. 226                            Fax: 514.286.2755
E-mail: austin@zks.net                                 http://www.zks.net

             Zero Knowledge Systems Inc. - Nothing Personal

Abstract:
Netscape Communications Corporation's release of Communicator 4.06contains a new feature, ``Smart Browsing'', controlled by a new icon labeled What's Related , a front-end to a service that will recommend sites that are related to the document the user is currently viewing. The implementation of this feature raises a number of potentially serious privacy concerns, which we have examined here. 
Specifically, URLs that are visited while a user browses the web are reported back to a server at Netscape. The logs of this data, when used in conjunction with cookies, could be used to build extensive dossiers of individual web users, even including their names, addresses, and telephone numbers in some cases. 
Keywords: Privacy, world-wide web (WWW), Netscape, Alexa, smart browsing, what's related.