Do Not Track Plus: A tool to protect your online privacy

Discussion in 'privacy technology' started by lotuseclat79, Feb 17, 2012.

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  1. chrisretusn

    chrisretusn Registered Member

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    Yes they are, but it's a cookie nonetheless. Why not just block those domains to start with? One has to wonder why an opt-out cookie is needed, when the domain can simply be blocked.

    Most of the domains with opt-out cookies are tracking domains anyway, I' me guessing they are tracking those opt-out cookies.

    In Firefox I block all cookies by default I use the exception list to Allow (currently 4 domains) or Allow for Session (46) selected domains. The Cookie Monster extension to make this easy to manage. All cookies are deleted when I exit Firefox, except those that are Allowed. (If Cookies is selected as part of "Clear history when Firefox closes" then all cookies are cleared, regardless of exceptions list.)

    For example wilderssecurity.com is white listed to Allow, I want to keep Wilders yummy cookies, not to keep from logging in, as I log out before I leave,which clears those cookies. On the forum main page I close up forum groups that I am not interested in, makes it easier navigate those I am interested in. Those settings are stored in a cookie.

    I wish we could be more selective on which cookies are kept, and which are not. There are a few sites were I only want a couple of cookies to be saved and not all of them.
     
  2. m00nbl00d

    m00nbl00d Registered Member

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    Nothing against that. I was just pointing out that the cookies in question are opt-out cookies; which to be honest, they do need to track us, anyway. ;)
     
  3. chrisretusn

    chrisretusn Registered Member

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    I kind of like have a low and manageable cookie count.

    The Do Not Track Plus takes that away by adding (without my permission) 205 additional cookies.

    I suppose one could argue that I gave permission when I install it, but I do not recall any mention of additional "opt-out" cookies being installed as part of the deal.
     
  4. kupo

    kupo Registered Member

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    Can't you just disable those opt-out cookies?
     
  5. m00nbl00d

    m00nbl00d Registered Member

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    Well, they do mention them. But, most people never read the FAQ page. :D -http://www.donottrackplus.com/faqs2.php

    Then, here -https://abine.com/optout/ you'll know how to turn it off...


    :thumb:
     
  6. chrisretusn

    chrisretusn Registered Member

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    You are correct; no I did not read the FAQ, it didn't exist when I first tried Do Not Track Plus.

    It really doesn't matter. You should be told up front, not in an FAQ.

    As for turning them off, that is a new feature?. Which I will shortly verify.

    Edit: Just tested turning them off. I tried to follow the directions at <https://abine.com/optout/>, not possible. Those screen shots (looks to be OS X) do not match what I see using Firefox in Linux. There is no option to turn off, remove opt-out cookies. I can turn off tracking for all listed sites or selected sites, however, the opt-out cookies remain, deleting them does nothing, they come back. Exiting the browser and restarting does not remove those cookies, they are still there..
     
    Last edited: Apr 25, 2012
  7. m00nbl00d

    m00nbl00d Registered Member

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    Don't take me wrong, I totally agree with you. Such information should be disclosed up front. I just wanted to let anyone know that they do have a FAQ page, and that they mention the opt-out cookies there. :)

    Whether or not the FAQ page is recent, it beats the hell out of me.

    Unfortunately, this non-disclosure isn't unique to Abine and/or Do Not Track Plus extension. Quite recently I've discovered an extension which does send info behind a user's back; without the user's consent. There's no disclosure about it either. I discovered, because I investigated the extension, and saw it mentioned in one of the *.js files. But, it's not mentioned in the extension's page, nor in it's options.
     
  8. chrisretusn

    chrisretusn Registered Member

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    I'm not disagreeing and I am glad you pointed out the FAQ. It's nice they added one.

    I've never really trusted Do Not Track Plus. I remember their early web page (wish I had a screenshot), it was more like selling snake oil than security.

    Well, it seems I was wrong. :oops: I installed Do Not Track Plus in my Fx in OS X, I was looking in the wrong place. It can be turned off and the cookies do indeed go aways after restarting Fx. I was looking for a settings page, you have to find a page that has ad network tracking (Not real hard to do, CNN works. ), you then have to click on the "ad networks tracking you box to expand it to list the sites, then you can see the to turn it off.

    Edt: Works that same in Linux too.

    You have peaked my interest though on that extension, I have 84 of them installed; but that's for another topic. :).
     
    Last edited: Apr 25, 2012
  9. m00nbl00d

    m00nbl00d Registered Member

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    84 what? Opt-out cookies or extensions? :argh:
     
  10. chrisretusn

    chrisretusn Registered Member

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  11. m00nbl00d

    m00nbl00d Registered Member

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    For the sake of justice, I should mention that I've been running it since the beginning of the week, and it's blocking fine.

    I think I may know what went wrong the first time I tried it. I came to realize that, for some reason, it needs to write o_O data to Chromium's profile folder. I never allow Chromium, and therefore extensions, to write to the profile folder, while I'm browsing. This made DNT+ not being able to load the trackers, and therefore it never blocked anything. :ouch:

    I do have an out of the ordinary setup. :D So now, I first let the browser and extensions access the profile folder, and after two or three seconds I prevent writing access to the folder again. I do this by playing with Windows 7 integrity levels.

    It's actually quite good. I'm running it along side AVG Do-Not-Track. Most of the times, this one is a bit faster. :D
     
  12. chrisretusn

    chrisretusn Registered Member

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    Agree, it does seem to do the job. I played with it for a few days awhile back. I compared it to Ghostery and they are both fairly close.

    Now that I know that opt-out cookies can be turned off I may give it another trial run. I installed it in special DoNotTrackPLus profile to test it out without messing with my regular profile. I may put it to daily use in my regular profile.

    I have a lot of other things at work too, mostly to keep the riff-raff at bay.
     
  13. Marx

    Marx Registered Member

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