These Sites Violate Your Privacy, Disseminate Your Info
Shelly Palmer
The Wall Street Journal has analyzed the top 50 sites in the United States plus 20 other top sites in sensitive categories like dating or health. They found that 25 of these sites—including OKCupid, Pinterest, YouTube, Yahoo—send personal data to other sites in the open, with no security encoding, using your own browser session. Their methodology looks good: “The Journal followed each site’s suggested registration procedure, including email confirmation when necessary. In addition to registering, the Journal logged out of each account, logged back in, and browsed all known types of pages on the site – for instance, article pages, profile pages and setting pages. The Journal cleared its test computer of tracking files, known as cookies, between each browsing session.”
