Top U.S. Websites, Including OKCupid, Share Visitor Personal Data

WSJ - Oct 12 - A study shows that 45% of the top 185 U.S. websites transmit identifying details about their visitors to at least four outside websites. The data transmitted was primarily a “username”. OKCupid sent the gender, age, zip code, relationship status and ‘drug use frequency’ to two companies that sell personal data in auctions, BlueKai and Lotame. Lotame confirmed that it has a data licensing relationship with OKCupid, but said it does not use data in the “drug use category.” BlueKai said that it does not buy or sell data attributes like “drug use frequency” from OKCupid.

by Julia Angwin
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Comments

[Mark Brooks]

Which is fine in the aggregate. This data sharing only becomes egregious when its specific to users.

[Markus]

its all specifc to users. You get a million and one cookies set every time you log in.

[Eric Resnick]

This is all starting to seem like more of a media argument than a real problem. Yes people hate to think that their personal information has been shared, but if they were honestly and truly offended, Facebook would be a barren wasteland and everyone would have closed their Gmail accounts.