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ARTICLE · 19 DECEMBER 2012

Learning From The Past: The FTC Bans Undisclosed History Sniffing

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It has been said that we must learn from the past to profit by the present.

United StatesPrivacy
Chandi Abeygunawardana
Chandi Abeygunawardana
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It has been said that we must learn from the past to profit by the present. Taking this literally in this digital age of ours, one online advertising company has found this maxim to have some serious privacy implications as evidenced by the FTC order last week banning undisclosed history sniffing practices.

Browser history sniffing is a web tracking technology that has existed for some time. By default on a webpage, unvisited links are displayed in one color and visited links are displayed in another color. History sniffing involves running Javascript code on a Web page to determine whether a user's browser displays links to specific domains as unvisited or visited. Using this information, the Web site can determine whether the user has been to specific web pages or not in the past, and from that, glean their interests. Users can prevent browser sniffing by simply clearing their browser history.

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