IP: Deja News

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

>
>Deja News to terminate email trail
>By Paul Festa
>Staff Writer, CNET News.com
>May 4, 1999, 5:30 p.m. PT
>Deja News has pledged to stop collecting information about users' email
>correspondence following complaints by a high-profile user.
>
>Deja News, which provides a Web interface and search capabilities for
>Internet newsgroups, acknowledged tracking the Internet Protocol (IP)
>addresses of users who click on outbound links within Deja News. In what it
>termed an "unintentional result," the company also was keeping IP address
>logs when Deja News readers sent messages via "mailto" links within Deja
>News.
>
>"For the last year, we have been collecting information about where our
>users click on our site by logging their IP addresses when they hit a link,"
>said Deja News chief executive Tom Phillips in an email message to the
>media. "We've used none of this information for any purpose other than to
>better understand aggregate usage patterns. However, we recognize the
>concern of our users over its potential misuse. Therefore, we are
>implementing a plan to discontinue the collection of this data."
>
>Deja News general counsel Richard Gorelick today clarified that while Deja
>News will discontinue logging IP addresses of those who click on email
>links, it is still looking into the matter of logging IP addresses of those
>who click on outbound site links.
>
>Deja News user, security maven, and Phar Lap Software president Richard
>Smith initially drew attention to the problem last week with a series of
>postings to the "comp.security.misc" newsgroup. At that time, Deja News
>insisted there was nothing improper about its logging activities.
>
>
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>Smith, whose newsgroup postings spurred the change in policy, said he did
>not suspect Deja News of any irresponsible or nefarious use of the
>information it was collecting, but that the mere collection of it could put
>users at a privacy risk for reasons beyond Deja News's control--for
>instance, if the logs were to be subpoenaed.
>
>"The danger for Web sites that either intentionally or unintentionally are
>tracking what people do on the Web is that they're going to be more and more
>likely to find themselves drawn into legal fights. We've been seeing that
>over last the last three or four months especially," Smith said, citing in
>particular a case in which the FBI found the culprit in a stock manipulation
>hoax by examining server logs at Yahoo and Angelfire.
>
>"Web sites are going to be asked for this information more and more," Smith
>predicted. "And the more they record, the more they could wind up being
>required to turn [that information] over."
>
>Deja News, for its part, appears to be more concerned about customer
>complaints than subpoenas.
>
>"We approached this more as a customer service issue," said Gorelick. "We
>care about our users and about their concerns. We did not look at this as a
>legal issue."
>
>The proposed logging change at Deja News comes as the site is working on a
>major overhaul, expected to be implemented in the next few weeks. Changes
>include a user ratings feature, e-commerce offerings, and a name change to
>"Deja.com."
>