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Pastimes : The Naked Truth - Big Kahuna a Myth
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To: IceShark who wrote (82574)1/6/2000 10:41:00 AM
From: Ken98  Read Replies (2) of 86076
 
Ice, I noticed the same thing with A0L. Most people don't realize the degree to which they are being watched by marketers while they are on the web. Certainly the recent disclosure about realnetwork is further evidence of this. A few weeks ago Forbes magazine had a very good cover article on this called something like "we know what you did last night" that spells a lot of this out.

I recently loaded that McAfee program called Guard Dog (part of their virus suite now) and was shocked (perhaps naive of me) to learn that a lot of the marketing sites send you cookies via other sites that you visit. This program asks you if you want to accept these trojan-like cookies or not. The program also keeps user specified information (name, ss#, etc.)from being sent on the web without your permission. Its worth a look if you don't already have it.

With respect to A0L service deterioration, it was almost impossible to log on in the evening due to busy signals (at least 3-4 tries, sometimes not at all) and if you ever got logged on it would kick you out without warning several times (2-3 per session typically). We did not ask about any other offers from A0L, we just called to cancel and they volunteered to knock down the price.

Like I said, we found a local ISP that is primarily targeting the business market that we are very pleased with. And the nice thing about using an ISP like that (as opposed to AOL or one of the free services) is that they are not tracking you or your information for marketing purposes like you are concerned about. Last fall someone stole my ss# (I still don't have a clue how) and started opening up credit cards in my name in another state that I've never visited, so I am especially sensitive to all of this now.

Regards, Ken.
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