[Foundation-l] Is a research banner "advertising" of the evil sort?

Fri Dec 9 15:39:43 UTC 2011

>
> In reply to Tom Morton's point about privacy - the exposure is no more
> (and as we now know, considerably less) than we experience every time
> we visit any other site on the 'net.

No... because the banner sent your WP username as part of the link - if I
visit any other site in the world they get my IP. If I visited *that* link
they get my WP username as well.

I think the major objection there was that it was not clear that this is
what was happening till *after* you clicked the link.

As you say this is no longer a concern - but it was not explained before
hand. And till the point that it was it was a reasonable objection; the
takeaway being that "next time" it should be explained before to set
peoples minds at rest :)

people who use Wikipedia (or a very small number of other sites where
> they can be familiar with disclosure policies) exclusively, and they
> were somehow surprised that the banner took them to an external site
> (despite the URL being available via float)... Then those people might
> have a legitimate privacy complaint.

 This was not the issue raised; or at the very little trivialises the main
point of objection in favour of the obviously unproblematic.

I've been involved extensively in issues of privacy and subterfuge for
several years now, as a by product of my work. Although my own view is that
open=good (hence, my real name, location etc.) many many people are
confused by privacy and upset by the idea of certain things being tracked
or discovered. I think that we too much trivialise those concerns as
"uninformed" - without understanding that we simply add to the problem *by
not being informative ourselves.*

Or to put it another way; the correct response here is not to go "oh your
being silly, would you like a tin foil hat" but to give the rational
explanation that makes someone not-concerned :)

Tom