Stop Facebook from tracking you, with Disconnect

I've been using a superb new online privacy oriented Chrome extension called Disconnect. It stops 3rd parties and search engines from tracking what you do and what you search for.

Spurred by the unmitigated spread of Facebook Connect, Google engineer Brian Kennish wrote the open source extension to give users greater control over their online privacy. Kennish observes: If you’re a typical web user, you’re unintentionally sending your browsing and search history with your name and other personal information to third parties and search engines whenever you’re online.

I have found using the extension to be quite enlightening and educational, as it informs you how many requests are being blocked at any given website.

In the following example, I'm browsing the homepage for The Globe and Mail (a major Canadian newspaper), and I can see that 6 tracking requests have been blocked--2 from Facebook, and 4 from Google.

Why should Facebook know what news articles I'm reading?

Personally, I'm not entirely comfortable with the fact that Facebook and Google are trying to track what news articles I'm reading. How do you feel about it? It's... somewhat insidious, don't you think? In the above example, I'm not even logged in to the respective services.

The extension also allows you to depersonalize your searches--in other words, your search history cannot be simply connected to you. The other functional aspect that is very useful about Disconnect, is that I can easily toggle the blocking for specific services (for example, if I need to temporarily log in to a site that uses Facebook Connect).

I recommend giving the extension a try--even just for informational purposes. You may be surprised--even shocked--to learn which major services are trying to track you, on what sites (The scary confirmation dialog that pops up when you install Disconnect is particularly ironic -- it warns you that the extension can access your data on all websites). You will realize that your internet behavior has become a commodity that is being sold. If you're not a Chrome user (and why aren't you?), take heart--Kennish plans to release Disconnect for Firefox next year.

Judicious use of extensions like Disconnect, along with prudent cookie management, allow you--for the time being--to exert a degree of control over who is watching you, and what they track. As Kennish declares, "They can't take our data without our permission anymore."

Twitter omphaloskepsis

Twitter is an inherently narcissistic medium. There are many valid information-sharing and collaborative uses, but overall I typically interpret a person's twitter stream as a crude reflection of their raw interests and personality. "This is what's on my mind, right now."  

Topic frequency within my Twitter stream

I decided to export my extant Twitter stream and perform some superficial analysis to see what I like to drone about. I passed the 1,000 tweet mark, and I felt that this was a sufficiently large body of text so as to be representative. While I don't have very many followers, I'd nevertheless like to thank all of them for their peculiar interest in what I have to say -- however banal or anodyne.

Blah blah blah
Clearly I enjoy nattering on about my work, and about software and technology. Life at a nascent software startup occupies the attention like few other things. It's not exactly scintillating subject material--but that is what is important to me, apparently. Narrowly squeaking into third place are tweets about the dynamic city I reside in, Toronto. I self identify as a climber, skateboarder, and runner, so it's not surprising to see those topics up there as well.

A simple conclusion to draw from the chart is, if the listed topics don't appeal to you, you're probably not going to want to follow me!

Methodology
I exported my Twitter stream with a free online tool called Tweetake [now defunct, alas. Twitter subsequently released directions on how to export your twitter archive], winding up with a tidy .CSV file. Then I manually went through each entry in Excel and tagged it with a keyword (or multiple keywords) depending on the subject matter. The last step was to generate a simple graph based on the keyword frequency.

Other areas for exploration
There are numerous areas for further analysis--except really, who has the time for that sort of foolishness? If I had a virtual assistant I would set them off on a report of:

• time-based analyses of topic frequency: when do I post, and what do I post about?
• # of posts that contain links or retweets (a measure of how much I share information vs. generate original content)
• where do I post from? (mobile vs desktop client)

Another data source that might be amusing to examine would be an extract of one's Facebook statuses (there are numerous applications out there that purportedly allow you to export statuses).

Final comment
While I'm not sure if I learned anything novel from this exercise, it's still useful to see that the data confirms the internal projection of how I see myself. I  believe self-awareness is one of the keys to maturity and personal satisfaction. Try it on your own feed -- do the results surprise you?

Another bright soul taken from us

Rest in peace, Cristina! A beautiful voice and spirit. The applicable word is saudade.

 

Cristina (right) at a Board Meeting

A fantastic fado performance by Cristina can be found here [Link defunct].

Update - the link doesn’t seem to be valid anymore. Sigh. I’ll see if I can get hold of it through other channels.

Update 2 - Here’s a commemorative piece I wrote -- with the recording! -- about Cristina.