Oooooh! This sounds like something that would definitely make Phorm illegal in New York! Now that would be great, wouldn't it? ;)

when they say "yes, we can voluntarily regulate ourselves, you have nothing to worry about" financiers and ad-men, evil gits the lot of them..

"when they say "yes, we can voluntarily regulate ourselves, you have nothing to worry about" financiers and ad-men, evil gits the lot of them.."

Not to mention to media! (Except el Reg of course)

The computer says no.

OK, so my proxy server stops it even getting that far - like with most things it's really only the unwary or unaware that need worry - of course because they are unwary or unaware they don't worry until I tell them what's going on.)

"yes, we can voluntarily regulate ourselves, you have nothing to worry about"

please read:

"all of your activity are belongs to us, truth is lies"

Those conditions would almost bring them up to the level of the UK's Data Protection Act. I'm stunned that the US might actually be trying to implement credible data protection laws.

The guy appears to have hit a real raw spot. Looking at the list of companies opposing this can only add more justification for it!

I am basing that statement under the pretenses that Gagle (Google, Yahoo, et. al.) are whining about the first amendment implicaitons of said proposed legislation...

Ahem... If I remember correctly, the first amendment protects the press and the American Public's freedom of speech to rag on the government and not fear retaliation. Nowhere in the constitution is it implied, that surveilence by business entities, for advertising purposes, are afforded the same protections.

When was the last time your IP changed? Mines been about 2x years or so, and before that was 8-12 months. The only person rejecting a cookie from doubleclick would benefit is the person on a dial-up type connection where they come from different IP's almost every connection. Your IP address is the most reliable information around now, with doubleclick and adwords google can now track your habits on probably >60% of sites on the web.

Rejecting cookies is not the answer, not requesting adds is the only resonable option... and that is rather tenuous. Suppose that I host my corporate logo on a Google hosted service, add blocking won't catch that; but now my ip address has been given away to google who can now track my habits for websites without adds (or hosted on any third party who would sell info to doubleclick, etc). Not meant to be banging just on Google, but being so broad (search, mail, office apps, doubleclick, adwords, etc) they have the largest amount of inhouse data on individuals in the world and it can be easily indexed between databases. So they are the easiest company to show what "could" happen.

I think that maybe you are probably sitting in the "unwary or unaware" to use your own words category, thinking that simply rejecting cookies would protect your privacy.

1) I am so sick of corporations hiding behind the Constitution and other laws. They are real happy to tell everyone there is no "person" to put in jail when they commit felonies. A corporation, regardless of it's original intent is nothing more than a complex legal dodge. Their purpose today is to skirt tax law and criminal prosecution. And I consider myself strongly pro-capitalism and quite right of center. But DAMN guys, when you're wrong you're wrong. Corollary when you're a felonious git bent on world domination people often won't have much sympathy for you.

2) If they were not doing all this and more the there would be no argument. I know this is a slippery slope as that's the excuse used by Luddites for why unrestricted government surveillance is okey-dokey. But this is more appropriately compared to laws that say identity theft is a bad thing. Not a lot of people say, But I have a legitimate need to use my neighbor's credit card number I found in his garbage.

3) I particularly like the "We'll have to do it for all states part". We can gloss over the part where they censor China's access just fine and not ours. There are some technical differences but certainly manageable. The more interesting comparison I'd mention would be when California decides to codify the latest wacky eco-terrorist wish list and the rest of the US has to comply because no company wants to market 2 of something. Yeah, it sucks to be on the receiving end of that doesn't it .... Silicone Valley!

OK, I feel better now.

This law will go exactly, nowhere!

What scares me is these retarded, mentally defunct state level politicians when they introduce bills like this. Dont get me wrong, this bill is a great idea, but uncle sam, soon to be aunt samantha (i fear), has a preemptive state level smack down in place forbidding individual states from passing any laws or regulations that attempts to regulate the internet, period. a smart move on the part of federal government, otherwise we would have 50 completely different sets of internet regulations to try and appease within the US.

so all this bill will effectively do is get the state of new york an up close look at the back of uncle sam's smack down hand.

so the scary part is two fold, 1. either these state politicos are too stupid to know they cant pass laws like this, or 2 they do know, and are just putting on a public show in the name of wasting new york's tax revenue on irrelevant shit!

Just a thought, but didn't the various financial organizations tha got us into this sub-prime mortgage mess say the same thing

...why didn't he make it a Federal issue instead of a State one ?? If he knows that the law(?) can be slapped down by Uncle Sammy, why did he still want it ?? If he did not, then why is he still an assemblyman ??

I don't understand how it can be legal for anyone, or company, to track anything that anyone does on the Internet. If I'm visiting your website then sure you should know what I'm looking at, accessing, but once I've moved on that should be the end of it for you.

Of course, it's my pessamistic belief that every government on Earth is totally corrupt and the companies in question can certainly afford to grease the wheels with their, illegally (barely legally - shouldn't be legal) gotten gains.

I've been reading the Phorm files and this all just really pisses me off. In fact, I should check for new articles there and really get my blood pressure up.

Dead bird because there will soon be no point in the Internet as a method of moving data, if there is any privacy requirement. I wonder how governments and other large corporations like having all their data on display?