NexusHD2 Android Forum

MarkAtHome wrote:So you added LINK.TAPATALK.COM and LINK2.TAPATALK.COM to hosts? Any landmines?

Nothing that bothered me too much. I do not click on a huge number of links while reading via Tapatalk. As a result of my blocks occasionally I have to copy the link and paste it into the browser myself. That only happens when the link is trying to go to Tapatalk, of course, so I know my block is doing the job. A minor inconvenience from my point of view.


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Any clod can have the facts, but having an opinion is an art.

donblazello wrote:They do have privacy policy: http://www.tapatalk.com/privacy.php

Still, it's interesting why they track, if they don't...

I came across this a while ago and have been meaning to post it. So, better late than never - here it is:

If you do enough digging into where the link.tapatalk.com redirection might lead you will eventually find this:

If you’ve landed on this page, you may be wondering exactly what it’s all about.

We’re Skimlinks — a service that helps online publishers earn money.

When links in publishers’ content lead their users to click through and buy from an online retailer, we make sure they’re rewarded!

We aim to make our service seamless and unobtrusive, so your user experience should not be interrupted. If you’ve landed on this page and didn’t mean to, unfortunately you’ve most likely clicked on a broken link along the way. Links can be broken if they are badly formatted; if you spot any again, we’d advise reporting these to the site owner.

So, now we know that they use some of the links we click on to monitise our actions. In other words, someone profits from it.

Do they retain the information in a database?
There is no way to know the answer to that question.

Tapatalk knows what forum you were visiting, what your login info is, what posts/topics you follow, what other forums you visit, where you are located, etc. etc...

Now, smartphones know everything — where people go, what they search for, what they buy, what they do for fun and when they go to bed. That is why advertisers, and tech companies like Google and Facebook, are finding new, sophisticated ways to track people on their phones and reach them with individualized, hypertargeted ads. And they are doing it without cookies, those tiny bits of code that follow users around the Internet, because cookies don’t work on mobile devices.

Privacy advocates fear that consumers do not realize just how much of their private information is on their phones and how much is made vulnerable simply by downloading and using apps, searching the mobile Web or even just going about daily life with a phone in your pocket. And this new focus on tracking users through their devices and online habits comes against the backdrop of a spirited public debate on privacy and government surveillance.

Drawbridge is one of several start-ups that have figured out how to follow people without cookies, and to determine that a cellphone, work computer, home computer and tablet belong to the same person, even if the devices are in no way connected. Before, logging onto a new device presented advertisers with a clean slate.

“We’re observing your behaviors and connecting your profile to mobile devices,” said Eric Rosenblum, chief operating officer at Drawbridge. But don’t call it tracking. “Tracking is a dirty word,” he said.

Drawbridge, founded by a former Google data scientist, says it has matched 1.5 billion devices this way, allowing it to deliver mobile ads based on Web sites the person has visited on a computer. If you research a Hawaiian vacation on your work desktop, you could see a Hawaii ad that night on your personal cellphone.

You can read the entire article at the New York Times.

There's a new way that advertisers could track you around the web, and you might be surprised about where the tracking data would come from: your device's accelerometer.

According to the SFGate article "..alarming’ method for phone tracking", security researcher Hristo Bojinov has discovered a way to distinguish individual devices simply by looking at data their accelerometers provide to webpages. Because accelerometers work imperfectly, they all display a unique result when idle — that result, Bojinov says, is enough to track a device around the web.

A website would only need to implement a small piece of code in order to begin tracking a device this way, reports SFGate. Though Bojinov can't say for certain whether anyone is already doing this, he says he'd be surprised if an advertiser wasn't already exploring the possibility. To see how effective the method is, you can view your own mobile device's accelerometer footprint at a website set up by Stanford, where Bojinov is a PhD candidate in computer science. While you'll have to actively flip the phone around in order to make it work, that reportedly wouldn't be necessary for actual tracking.

Bojinov's research should be published in the coming months, SFGate reports. But while he may describe a surprising and eerie way to track devices, it's far from the only tool advertisers have for tracking: even outside of cookies, advertisers can distinguish between different people just by looking at information their browsers always hand over, like what fonts they have access to and what operating system is being used. That means accelerometer tracking may not be needed, but as advertisers look for better ways to follow people around the mobile web, it's easy to imagine that the option won't be ruled out.

Your cell phone helps you keep in touch with friends and families but it also makes it easier for security agencies to track your location.

Your Web searches about sensitive medical information might seem a secret between you and your search engine, but companies like Google are creating a treasure trove of personal information by logging your online activities, and making it potentially available to any party wielding enough cash or a subpoena.

And the next time you try to board a plane, watch out—you might be turned away after being mistakenly placed on a government watch list, or be forced to open your email in the security line.

National and international laws have yet to catch up with the evolving need for privacy that comes with new technology. Several governments have also chosen to use malware to engage in extra-legal spying or system sabotage for dissidents or non-citizens, all in the name of “national security.”

Respect for individuals' autonomy, anonymous speech, and the right to free association must be balanced against legitimate concerns like law enforcement. National governments must put legal checks in place to prevent abuse of state powers, and international bodies need to consider how a changing technological environment shapes security agencies’ best practices.

EFF fights in the courts and Congress to extend your privacy rights into the digital world, and works with partners around the globe to support the development of privacy-protecting technologies. Read our work on privacy issues below, and join EFF to help support our efforts.

For information about the law and technology of government surveillance in the United States check out EFF's Surveillance Self-Defense project.

This may be of interest to those concerned with privacy issues:

The Internet made distance irrelevant.

Now, sensors in physical stores are helping to make proximity relevant, and startup Unacast is announcing a seed round of $1.6 million so it can become the backend.

The Oslo, Norway-based company, which has opened an office in London and is planning one for New York City, has a vision that may excite many marketers and worry at least some consumers.

Here’s the problem Unacast wants to solve, from its announcement:

As soon as the customer leaves [a store or venue with a beacon], he or she becomes invisible, until they resurface in the same location. What the customer did before and after the visit is unknown.
The reason: Stores have separate systems for beacons or other proximity sensors.

To fill in where you went after you left that store, the seven-month-old Unacast is partnering with proximity solution providers, or PSPs. These are companies largely focused on installing and maintaining beacons, but some also track point-of-sale (POS) systems and Web calls prompted by QR code scans of products in stores.

Complete article is here.