Is 37 Signals Selling Behavioral Targeting Data?

http://news.ghostery.com/post/200516394/is-37-signals-selling-behavioral-targeting-data

by dcancel • 17 years ago

42 38 17 years ago

news.ghostery.com

tptacek• 17 years ago

Can someone explain how this is any weirder than 37signals using Google to serve ads? I'm not expressing an opinion, I just don't know what this post is trying to say.

brown9-22• 17 years ago

Or any weirder than using Google Analytics...

mrshoe• 17 years ago

I honestly can't tell. The confusing nature of the post leads me to believe it's FUD, especially since the call to action at the end encourages me to use their product to protect me from the supposed evil.

dcancel11• 17 years ago

See above for my full comments but in short the difference here is that Media6 Degrees collects your behavioral data ties it with your social graph (your friends) data packages it up and resells it to other ad networks to target you.

RyanMcGreal• 17 years ago

It feels like there should be some commas in your sentence.

dannyr• 17 years ago

It looks like the guy is using it to pitch his product.

dcancel11• 17 years ago

See below for my full comments but in short this is not an ad for my "free" product. I've updated my post to link to other ad blockers to make this crystal clear.

judofyr• 17 years ago

You can't say "above" or "below" on a site like Hacker News :-)

redorb• 17 years ago

we're not all non-profits; its a relevant pitch at least. ;0)

dcancel11• 17 years ago

This is the author of Ghostery. Sorry if it came off that way that is not my intent. I am not pitching my "free" product.

The difference here is that Media6 Degrees collects your behavioral data ties it with your social graph (your friends) data packages it up and resells it to other ad networks to target you.

Google Analytics data doesn't get sold to 3rd parties nor is it used by AdWords/AdSense to target ads at you (at least that is Google's claim).

Sorry if this came off as an ad, its not.

buugs• 17 years ago

I liked it as an ad, it actually made me interested in your product to see what you found using it.

Much better than a website with an about page :)

sunir6• 17 years ago

Thank you for this. It would be valuable if you could please ask them for their side and follow up with another post explaining if they in the right or wrong.

brown9-22• 17 years ago

How do they tie this to your "social graph"?

blasdel• 17 years ago

You can insert hidden anchor tags into the DOM and then use an a:visited selector to detect visited URLs.

jasonlbaptiste• 17 years ago

It may have to do with the ad network they are founders of- thedeck

dcancel11• 17 years ago

Thought that might be the case but couldn't find it on any other "Deck" ad sites.

Interesting

sunir6• 17 years ago

If you were truly legit you would have first asked them. I flagged this post.

dcancel11• 17 years ago

Huh? I should ask every site on the internet that is tracking your behavioral information why they're doing it?

I think we the users should decide what info gets shared with who. I also think we have the right as their user to publicly call them on questionable practices.

I'm a fan of their products too, just not a fanboy, there's a difference.

ryanwaggoner• 17 years ago

I should ask every site on the internet that is tracking your behavioral information why they're doing it?

If you're publicly accusing them of doing so, and doing so for monetary gain, then yeah, it does seem like some measure of journalistic integrity would require at least a half-assed attempt at getting the other side of the story. Even TechCrunch shoots out an email so they can say that they asked the company what their side is.

If you're really searching for the truth, you should have approached them and asked, especially since your title is a question and you have this line in your post:

I can’t figure out why 37 Signals would be selling this information to ad networks.

Your post is making an implication that something nefarious is going on, without actually having the guts to come out and say it. Instead, you pretend to be confused, and state that you're really not sure what's going on. If that's actually the case, why not just ask them?

As it is, it appears that you think you do know what's going on, you want to stir the pot and get some publicity for your product, and by keeping it vague, you protect yourself if you're wrong.

sunir6• 17 years ago

Absolutely yes. It is the same expectation when you find a security hole. You should always ask their side of the story first before going public with naked speculation.

Because you have a conflict of interest this pushes the post past merely poor form.

ubernostrum• 17 years ago

So, I'd never heard of you or whatever it is you're selling until I saw this post.

The impressions I get of you from the article and this thread are, roughly in order:

1. Hm, why not ask them about this in case there's a simple explanation? That's the standard practice when you're accusing someone of doing something nasty.

2. Oh look, the top comment on the article (and in the HN thread) provides the simple explanation.

3. So, basically this dude's pushing a non-story to try to sell his product? That's kinda sketchy.

wavesplash• 17 years ago

David is legit (founder of Compete.com). Ghostery has been around since late last year and now David is working on it full-time from what I understand.

jasonfried• 17 years ago

No, we are not selling behavioral targeting data - or any other data - about our visitors to anyone.

Our Product Blog (which is referenced in the screenshot) is hosted on Typepad.

It looks like Typepad injects javascript from Quantcast and cdn.media6degrees.com at the bottom of Typepad-hosted pages. This appears to be related to Typepad's internal analytics reporting. More info here: http://support.typepad.com/cgi-bin/typepad.cfg/php/enduser/s...

Check out some other Typepad hosted blogs (http://www.avc.com, for example) and you'll see the same code. In fact, I can't seem to find a Typepad-powered blog that doesn't have this code. Here's a long list: http://featured.typepad.com

This code appears to be what Ghostery is picking up and calling out.

jrockway2• 17 years ago

Uh oh, actual facts?

Damn it, I just bought a pitchfork and really wanted to use it for something!

caffeine• 17 years ago

Warning! Entering the fact-free zone.

Seriously, it's impolite to publish articles that are angry accusations without (a) consulting the accused and (b) limiting one's accusations to the evidence at hand.

Your article makes it sound like they collect confidential data from their apps and sell it for money. Can't understand why so many people would upvote this.

jrockway2• 17 years ago

Clearly you know nothing about blogging! Letting facts get in the way of a hate session is simply not profitable!

Is 37 Signals Selling Behavioral Targeting Data?

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