There are a flurry of stories about how IE9 will make it harder for people to track your Internet activity. The first subhead I read on one of these stories is: "Advertisers complain the Internet Explorer browser tool will hinder their ability to support free news, entertainment and other online content."
Of course, because advertisers online are all snoops. Google is the biggest one of all. The fact is that people can minimize tracking by erasing all their cookies. But because cookies also contain useful data such as stored passwords and bookmarks this has become impractical for most users.
And then there is my favorite problem, which nobody seems to care much about—the bullying website that makes you turn on your cookies, like it or not.
This, to me, means that the IE9 ant-tracking measure is a useless publicity stunt, since they will just you to turn the feature off anyway.
For example: You have all cookies disabled because you do not want to be tracked. You hit a common website. You get a message from the site telling you that you have your cookies disabled and the site will not proceed feeding you data unless you let your browser accept cookies. You need the information contained on the site, so you relent and turn on cookies.
Now you either have to go back and find the cookie and erase it to prevent being tracked or you just leave it there. Since this happens so often, you generally leave it there. It's a huge hassle to be going through a ridiculous rigmarole every time you want to look at a web page.
When you run a spyware or adware program, you get a list of hundreds, if not thousands of cookies that have been stored on your machine.
Most people do not even know this is going on, and as far as I'm concerned, it should be illegal for someone to use my machine as a storage mechanism. If people want to track me, why can't they use my IP address to track me on their own equipment and hard drives? Why does my machine have to be clogged with weird crap?
Um, I have a reason: So the website can snoop on my other cookies and see what else is going on. That's why.
This is totally ridiculous, and the fact that users put up with it is more than ridiculous. Oh, wait, few people even know this is going on. The idea is soft-pedaled to the public as a good thing. "Hey, it helps us serve YOU better!"
They should be more honest with their assertions and say, "Hey, it helps us trick YOU better."
I can assure you that when any website opens with "Hello Lisa, good to see you again," they are not your friends greeting you on the street with good intentions.
Because of the new IE9, we are already hearing from complaining advertisers, and you know what's next. What's next is the pesky message from the websites telling you to turn off the anti-tracking feature because it is important that they track you "to serve you better." And then the site will clam up until you change the setting. So what will you do? You'll turn of the feature, so you can get what you need. Eventually, it will stay off for good, and you'll lose again.
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