"History Sniffing"...

History sniffing is the art of tracking where people have been on the internet. Essentially, it is to help advertisers target very specific advertisements to very specific people. However, it seems that it happens most obviously with porn sites which kinds of makes the the whole idea of 'history sniffing' sound a little dirty. Yet, the biggest problem is that this kind of snooping is really tantamount to an invasion of privacy. It is an invasion of privacy because you, the internet surfer, has not consented to your data being collected in this manner nor have you consented for it to be collected for this purpose.

Nevertheless, it would be unfair to label this as exclusively a porn site thing. It is clearly not. The data being harvested can be done through a visit to a news site, while you are doing your internet banking, or if you are visiting a porn site for the purposes of research. Some of the biggest 'offenders' based on the research / survey data was Morningstar.com and Newsmax.com. Morningstar is a financial services website and Newsmax is a news website. For example, a recent survey, conducted by the University of California at San Diego, found that most internet search browsers allow for history sniffing to continue unabated.

However, the report based on this survey also found that the more recent versions of Google Chrome prevented history sniffing from occurring. Also Apple's latest versions of Safari do not allow history sniffing to take place. Microsoft's Internet Explorer does not yet prevent history sniffing from happening although the next version will, yet will come at a price as it will seemingly disable other useful features such as allowing your computer to recognise where you have been previously. The other popular browser that continues to allow history sniffing is Mozilla Corp's Firefox.

I am currently using the latest version of Google Chrome, so with a bit of luck I am not currently susceptible to history sniffing.

It is worth noting that one's passwords are not at risk here. This technology is not being used to harvest passwords or any other personal data except for where you have been. It really is about following your trail and then modifying advertising to give you, the "consumer", the most personalised service possible.

It is also worth noting that it might not matter too much longer with respect to what internet browsers in conjunction with advertisers want as US regulators are looking at requiring the use of a "Do Not Track" tool that is designed for no other reason than to stop advertisers from tracking specific individuals in order to target them with equally specific internet bargains.

I am no techno wizard so I am never sure whether this data even know it is stated that it is being used only for advertising purposes cannot be worked to develop a comprehensive profile of one's habits. Perhaps it is better to err on the side of caution if doing things that may be misconstrued if they were to ever become publicly available.

Hmmm...

Don't Apple Lawyers Have Better Things To Do?

MIC Gadget have produced a Steve Jobs action figure that comes complete with speech bubble cards of classic Jobs' phrases. It sells for USD 80 so it is not cheap. But, hey, Let's face it, people love their Apple and they love its founder, Steve Jobs. So, USD 80 sounds like a steal. And, it was of Apple's intellectual property rights.

In fact, it was a steal. The action figures sold out in no time at all. MIC Gadget marketed the figure as the "Phenomenal SJ Figurine". As you can see from the figurine, it is a dead ringer for Jobs down to the black turtleneck and the New Balance 991 joggers. The little iPhone and the Apple icon as a figurine stand are nice little touches.

However, it seems that MIC Gadget failed to get Apple's permission to use their intellectual property. Consequently, Apple's lacking a sense of humour lawyers fired off a "cease and desist" order to MIC Gadget. Game over! The figurine is no more. So, if you were one of the lucky few to get one on the first issue, then you currently have a collectors item that has significantly appreciated in value! Maybe not quite as much as an Apple Share or that of a Google share, but nonetheless it has appreciated in value.

MIC Gadget have apologised for their errors in producing and selling the doll. However, they have offered to continue to produce it, particularly if Apple was prepared to license it and, say, bundle it with the iPhone 4. These people at MIC Gadget really do have a great sense of humour. No word yet as to whether Apple is interested in taking MIC Gadget up on its offer.

The weird and wonderful world of corporate America, and perhaps business in general all over the world!

The Ugly Meter...

I do not own an iPhone, but now that I know that I can pay USD 0.99 and buy an application called the "Ugly Meter", I might just have to splash out and get one. The concept is an interesting one; face scanning technology that maps your face and then gives it a rating of somewhere from 1 to 10. I am no techno wizard, but I always thought that this would have to be a 3-D thingy in order to get some accuracy to the scanning and mapping. Perhaps I have been watching too much CSI and NCIS and Law & Order.

Anyways, the ugly meter seemingly scans and calls most people ugly. So, it appears to be an equal opportunity ugly meter and makes everyone ugly. It is hard to work out how best to use the ugly meter. I can see that if you can resist the urge to scan yourself and just scan all those around you, then there is a chance that this application will be good for yourself esteem and body image, well at least your face image. Then again, if you cannot resist that urge and you scan yourself and score a woeful ugly number then your hard-earned self-esteem could be shot in no time at all.

Yet, if trial runs are anything to go by this application could be a real winner. Brad Pitt, often cited as one of the beautiful people and one-time sexiest man alive, has found out that age does in fact weary him. Mr. Pitt scores a pretty ugly 8 on the ugly meter. When Brad Pitt scores an 8 it is almost worth buying the application just to see if you can score a 7. If I scored a 7 then you can rest assured that everyone I know will know that I am just that little bit "hotter" than Brad Pitt! But Mr. Pitt's better half scored a lot better. It just goes to prove that old adage; opposites attract.

Then again, knowing the reaction of my mirror when I stand in front of it, a ten is not outside the realm of possibility! Or better still, the application just laughs and says "Mate, you're so ugly that it is not even worth a score...but, 27!"

Apparently, the developers of this here "ugly meter" are doing beautiful business. They managed to sell some USD 10,000 worth over the past weekend. I really need to whack on the thinking cap and come up with an iPhone application that people will find amusing.

Citizen Journalism, Steve Jobs, and the Apple Share Price

The rapid improvements in technology and the greater accessibility to it for the ordinary person has meant that the term citizen journalism has come to mean a rapid dissemination of information no matter whether that information is true or not. Any information that is untrue will eventually be found out but perhaps not before the damage is already done.

Apple learnt this the hard way recently. It would be sublimely ironic if the person that posted the erroneous report was using Apple technology or was a shareholder in Apple.

Time Warner who is the owner of CNN and therefore of a site called iReport which was put together by CNN as a community journalism portal. iReport is designed to be a portal for information that is directly uploaded to the site without any real vetting. The headline for iReport is unedited, unfiltered, news. Any information uploaded that is found to contravene the "community guidelines" for the site will be removed.

I am sure that CNN have posted a big disclaimer that it is not responsible for nor guarantees the accuracy of the information that gets uploaded to the iReport site.

A posting on iReport claimed that Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, had suffered a heart attack and was being rushed to hospital. As bad as the heart attack for Jobs might have been if it was real was cause for investors to panic and perhaps have heart attacks themselves.

In the ensuing panic Jobs might actually have had a heart attack when he saw Apple's share price plummet some 9% and hitting a 17-month low and finally closing down some 3% for the day's trade. The report and the rapid fall in share price has sparked the interest of the Security and Exchange Commission. The SEC has indicated that they are going to investigate.

This is not the first time Jobs has had medical problems in fact it has been reported by Bloomberg that Jobs had died as recently as August. Jobs responded by telling the audience at his next public appearance that reports of his death had been greatly exaggerated.

The question is whether or not erroneous reporting like this example is enough to kill citizen journalism. My view is that it is not. The reality is that people need to take responsibility as much for what they read as they write. Besides there are probably more instances of citizen journalists being right on the money rather than missing big time like this report of Steve Jobs imminent demise.