Battle for control of your online data waged on many fronts

By Florian Oertel Apr 18, 2010, 17:24 GMT

Berlin - Internet users these days are finding themselves boxed ever more into a corner. Criminals come at them from one side, looking for private data for illegal enterprises. Government agencies approach from the other side, eager to keep tabs on one and all.

And that's to say nothing of online retailers, who have gotten so good at gathering data that they tend to get people to give up their personal information willingly.

Such is the fate of anyone who wanders into cyberspace - a life of trying to protect one's privacy while surrounded by people who just want him to click on one ad that might give you what you want, but at the cost of some of your most important secrets.

After all, the wider a net these gatherers spread, the more likely they'll get something valuable. That's why so many companies have started to ask so many questions online - some of which are not at all necessary - in the hopes they can nudge people into offering up something useful.

'Here's the average person's chance to ask themselves if they really want to use the services of a business that gathers up more data than is needed,' says Susanne Dehmel, who focuses on data protection for the German computer trade association BITKOM.

It's impossible to avoid some information being gathered up. Every online store - indeed every website - monitors the IP address of those who visit. That's not much use by itself, says Dehmel, since those addresses are dynamic, generated new for each visit and without identifying links to the individual user.

That's where cookies come in. 'These are tiny crumbs of information, which my browser saves when it visits a site and which operators can evaluate,' says Jo Bager of German computer magazine c't. Usually that evaluation isn't done by the site manager, but by marketers. By looking at every stored cookie, they can generate a profile of a user. Users can fight back by blocking the creation of cookies in their browser settings.

But developers are always finding new ways to make cookies and some of those cannot be blocked with a simple deactivation. Bager notes that the new and popular flash cookie is one of these.

Google is one of the most prevalent advertising marketers. It's no secret that the company's site automatically scans emails written by customers of its free email service, looking for keywords. Additionally, social networks, which continue to grow in popularity, are little more than giant advertising platforms, notes Bager.

'These operators want to know as much as possible about you so they can send targeted advertising to you.'

German consumer goods organization Stiftung Warentest recently noted that a lof of network operators allow themselves great latitude in what they can do with data. 'Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn limit the rights of users, but leave themselves plenty of leeway for handing data over to third parties,' it reported.

Does that mean you should give services like Google's mail and networks a pass? Bager recommends being realistic. 'That's just the deal with Google.' One gets a free service, but has to live with personalized advertising in exchange.