[p2p-research] Fwd: Erosion of Online Anonymity and How to Restore It - Summation

Thu Sep 30 09:49:30 CEST 2010

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Auren Hoffman Summation <auren at summation.net>
Date: Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 7:51 PM
Subject: Erosion of Online Anonymity and How to Restore It - Summation
To: michelsub2004 at gmail.com

   Dear Michel,

Here is a recent article I wrote on why comsumers' presumption of anonymity
on the web is important for the internet's continued growth ... thought you
would enjoy ...

*The Erosion of Online Anonymity (and How to Restore It)*

One of the most important principles of individual privacy is the ability to
act anonymously.  When people are driving to a store or reading a book at
home, they have a reasonable assumption that nobody is monitoring their
behavior and attaching it to their name and address.

[image: Peopleoncomputer] The same should be true on the internet: when you
are online, there should be a presumption of anonymity. Nobody -- including
websites, ad networks, ad exchanges, widgets, outside analytics services,
etc.  -- should know who you are and what you do unless you sign up or log
in.

In a better world with sufficient anonymity online, your search history and
the sites you visit should not be matched back to personally-identifiable
information (like your name, address, email, etc.) so it cannot be stolen,
used to discriminate against you, or subpoenaed by the government.

In online advertising, there are various standards for what constitutes
sufficient online anonymity. But unless companies  adhere to the highest
standard and increase awareness to consumers, internet users may think their
browsing behavior is being tied to their identity and may subsequently
dramatically decrease internet consumption and be less likely to experiment
with new online services. In short, the lack of available anonymity could
stifle the online economy and all the innovation happening on the web.

*What Anonymity Means*

[image: Anonymous] The key to protecting anonymity is to make it technically
impossible - not just contractually prohibited or difficult - to tie an
internet user to their name and address when they are not explicitly logged
in.

This doesn't mean that websites and third party services can't know
something interesting about you.  They might know that you are a woman who
lives in the New York area, plays tennis, enjoys Settlers of
Catan<http://blog.summation.net/2009/11/in-silicon-valley-settlers-is-the-new-golf.html>,
is in market for a trip to Italy, and drives a hybrid.  This is good because
they can use this data to give you a more personalized experience: content
you like, better customer service, more targeted ads, and less spam.  But
they should not know *that it is you*.

Of course, once you log in or when you link to your name or Twitter profile,
people might know it is you.   But it is important that when you first
arrive at a site, nobody knows exactly who you are unless you explicitly log
in.

*Prescriptions to improve online privacy and anonymity*

Here are some prescriptions that online services should use to raise the bar
on online privacy:

1. Eliminate the collection and analysis of "Machine ID"

[image: Fingerprint]

A Machine ID is like your computer's fingerprint that can usually uniquely
identify you.  It is the information that your computer may send to the
sites you visit, like your IP address, browser configuration, "clock skew"
(the millisecond difference in the clock on your machine and that on the
server), and more.

One reason sites and third-parties collect Machine ID is to help customize
the online experience for people based on past machine behavior. But this
can be uniquely identifiable because people largely use the same computers,
meaning that machine IDs can potentially be looked up and traced back to an
individual (there is a marketplace for addresses-to-IP matches today). In
fact, IP address alone can be traced back to 30% of households
today<http://www.adexchanger.com/the-debate/why-ip-tracking-is-a-bad-idea/>
.

2. Store audience data in browser cookies

While browser cookies have recently received a lot of attention, they are
one of the most privacy-centric ways to help personalize services for
consumers.  Today, pretty much every site that you go to uses cookies every
time you visit.  This is generally a good thing for consumer privacy, since
- using browser settings - a person browsing the Internet can entirely
control their cookies.   However, many companies don't do a good job of
anonymizing cookies.

[image: Cookies] Many firms store a unique ID in a user's browser cookie and
ping cloud servers with this unique ID to "see" data associated with the
cookie. This system of storing unique cookie IDs has a lot of benefits since
it enables the information associated with cookies to be quickly updated and
more easily analyzed.

But using unique IDs also means people may no longer be anonymous.  A more
privacy-centric solution is to store all the segments of a person directly
on a cookie<http://blog.rapleaf.com/dev/2010/09/10/why-rapleaf-does-not-use-unique-identifiers-in-cookies/>.
The data can be encrypted and secured so that only the cookie-placer can
access it.

Changing the cookie system from unique ID-centric to segment-centric is a
large technical challenge and might take some sites, ad networks, and
widgets many months to complete.  But it would be great that if by this time
next year, all companies could be more pro-consumer in the way they store
data within cookies.

3. Make it impossible to identify an individual using anonymous data
segments

But storing the data directly on the cookie is only part of the challenge.
Data also needs to be anonymized appropriately.  Simply stripping personally
identifiable information out of a cookie is not enough to make it
anonymous<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=x54fkicab&et=1103600865228&s=7682&e=001pc3JAUDMvHvDbhDYjXL0A8On-4eUmmXyvwaT5aTSDKlki3SKcMqyMVay1p7PWTYuG9Scq6iiz17DIzGCZKcs4AOX2eYC6lpGSlgt49Mt0WLAejQ9iAzzovBGdPui3U9vjKXu3ASOZMjBcuNQFO3H0iDervq9d507>.
Recently, Netflix had to shut down its million-dollar Netflix recommendation
contest<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=x54fkicab&et=1103600865228&s=7682&e=001pc3JAUDMvHvNp9SIZ-DxOJ6Mnzbbi-GQ09aAO8lA2gdpslFBWdvNeQfW1pNDGIOIp5JesrF7QcJ-uTb59-Gbw75n5AqcyeMT88rax2A07OsqO2bHMqqj2YD5JWIaqKDUewTfKdfj6jaDfrHUXlciGeJGKNDCa1V4jAL7AnRascDUiReyaUOHok6rmaLoPCTqj0jiCgHdxJL8M5WMGBR54CIRd9v2FWkG>as
a result of an FTC inquiry about their anonymization practices.

If there is data on me that says my company is "Rapleaf" and my title is
"CEO," it is not anonymous because I am the only person that fits the join
of both of those attributes.  A more appropriate description would be
company "technology start-up" and title of "executive"-that gives me room to
add other criteria like lives in "SF Bay Area," plays "soccer," and reads
lots of books on "foreign policy" without knowing it is me.   Many people
fit all those characteristics.

These are just three of many prescriptions that companies should implement
to help ensure the presumption of anonymity.   Adopting these changes will
require a short-term sacrifice for web sites and third-parties, but
long-term these are the right decisions for companies to make.

Giving technologists a better appreciation of why privacy - and in
particular anonymity - is really important is not an easy task.  Most
Silicon Valley companies come from the perspective that their technology is
sacrosanct.  As an engineer, I admit that we started my company Rapleaf with
that approach. However, years of engagement with our web users, customers,
partners, privacy experts and advocates (including our own privacy advisory
board), have made it clear that investing in a safe infrastructure where
users have the presumption of anonymity will ensure that the Internet will
continue to grow and stay vibrant.
*
Special thanks to Michael Hsu, Joel Jewitt, Jeremy Lizt, Travis May, and
others for their help and edits....*
   *

(f you like this, please send it to a friend, tweet it, and "like" it on
Facebook)*

... See more comments and comment yourself at: Summation blog:
The Erosion of Online
Anonymity<http://blog.summation.net/2010/09/the-erosion-of-online-anonymity-and-how-to-restore-it.html#comments>

----
Rapleaf (where I work) is looking for some great people.  If you refer
someone we hire for a full-time position you get $5,003.14 referral reward.
we are looking for a lot of people:

- Director of Finance
- General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer
- 4 incredibly talented software engineers
- 3 great sales people
- Spring and summer interns (both engineering and business)
- and more
More at:  http://www.rapleaf.com/careers
  Read my articles in
BusinessWeek<http://search.businessweek.com/Search?searchTerm=auren+hoffman>
Read my articles in the Huffington
Post<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/auren-hoffman/>
Read my TechCrunch guest post on engineering productivity
<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=x54fkicab&et=1103600865228&s=7682&e=001pc3JAUDMvHuozvcbF9j9qIF-4z1q-vps7ffYYmMh1YIRsx7WWuV4ejY1pDcU4ojoPwVeped09DrB7JwFkvyVIPL-SetF1kVbgL7ao5RxxswUtyA519kepdOxvo_wmiaIEaoirNV8uSRWAbNpPY7aTv8-NFX2kKTe4prfQaitjgW-EBJPqFIB8fymSVwUhoczyc2OxVZCBdo=>

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