iSpy

I Know Who You Are and I Saw What You Did

Social Networks and the Death of Privacy

by Lori Andrews

Free Press

If you post a photo online from your iPhone, tech-savvy stalkers can tell exactly where you are. Researchers can predict the first five digits of your Social Security number from just your webcam photo. And if you type your name in the search box at Spokeo.com, you could wind up staring at a picture of your own front door.

While most people are aware that some amount of privacy has been lost due to the Internet and social media, “I Know Who You Are and I Saw What You Did” documents exactly how much we’ve lost and what dangers we face as a result.

“If someone broke into my home and copied my documents, he’d be guilty of trespass and invasion of privacy. If the cops wanted to wiretap my conversation, they’d need a warrant,” writes Lori Andrews, a law professor and an expert on the integration of law and technology.

“But without our knowledge or consent, virtually every entry we make on a social network or other website is surreptitiously bring tracked and assessed.”

Companies have contracted with Internet service providers to access everything we do on the web — even the contents of our e-mail messages — without our knowledge or consent.

These abuses are everywhere, as our information is collected and/or sold by our Internet service provider, the websites we visit, and even websites and companies we’ve never heard of (such as Spokeo, one of several websites that makes comprehensive information on people available for just a few dollars a month).

As early as 2001, the data aggregator DoubleClick was leaving tracking tools on the computers of visitors to 11,000 websites, including the 1,500 most-visited sites on the Internet.

In the course of researching this book, the author discovered that Comcast, her own ISP, had installed more than 100 tracking tools on her computer. More surprisingly, a site as seemingly innocuous as Dictionary.com left an incredible “234 tracking tools on a user’s computer without permission — only 11 from Dictionary.com, and 223 from companies that track Internet users.”

Andrews lays the blame on the industry known as behavioral advertising, which uses the web to collect as much information on individual consumers as possible.

Behavioral advertisers have struck deals with ISPs and websites to gain access to our data using a variety of online tools, and the level of intrusion is shocking.

If you use a free e-mail service such as Gmail for instance, you see targeted banner ads — because your messages have been “scraped” by companies. E-mail someone that you’re pregnant? Expect diaper ads on your screen.

Follow @NYPostOpinion