Abine in the news...
On February 13, Abine, Inc., a leader in online privacy solutions, announced that is had filed a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) complaint against the people search website BeenVerified.com, one of the webís largest background check websites and data brokers, alleging deceptive and unfair trade practices. Today, I exchanged emails with the author of the complaint, Sarah Downey, Legal Marketing Associate at Abine, Inc., regarding Internet privacy, people search sites, background checks, Facebook and how to protect your online identity.
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Getting personal information removed from websites that collect it can feel a lot like playing Whac-a-Mole.
David Cox, a businessman from Tulsa, Okla., got his name, address and other personal details removed from the online background-check website BeenVerified.com, but his success was temporary. He submitted his first request for removal in April, using a service called "DeleteMe" from Boston privacy start-up Abine Inc., and it was almost immediately honored. But four months later, in August, his information popped up again on the website, forcing him to submit another request.
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Here's fair warning to all social media data scavengers, ad tracking companies, and analytics snoops on the InterWebs: There's a new anti-tracking sheriff in town.
Online privacy company Abine Inc. last week unveiled a new browser widget called, appropriately enough, DoNotTrackPlus (because these days everything has to come with a plus sign -- thank you, Google). I've been taking it for a spin this morning and I gotta say it's pretty slick.
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If ad-blocking is the hacksaw of Internet-protecting add-ons, the overhauled add-on Do Not Track Plus bows today as a finely honed scalpel, excising tracking behaviors embedded in sites without destroying the modern Web.
Released exclusively through CNET Download.com, Do Not Track Plus 2.0.4 follows last year's beta release with a greatly expanded feature set, better performance, and is available on four of the five major browsers. You can download Do Not Track Plus for Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Safari. Read more...
Cambridge, MA
BOSTON -- Jan. 24th, 2012; Abine, a leading provider of online privacy solutions for consumers looking to regain control over their personal information, announced today that it has appointed Kristina Kennedy as vice president of marketing and Brian Michon as vice president of engineering. These strategic appointments of two well -- respected Boston -- based high tech executives will increase the company’s capability to meet the growing consumer demand for its suite of privacy tools.
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Lauren Shields didn't like the idea that her every move on the Internet might be tracked and reported to who-knows-whom, so she downloaded a free program to shut out the online trackers.
That's when the Atlanta-area seminary student found out just how many snooping eyes were upon her. With each website she visited, the new software showed her an alert, revealing which companies were recording her every click. Some had household names such as Facebook and Google; others she didn't even know.
"It's none of their business. That's my private life," said Shields, 30. "It means they are compiling a database on you - where you go and who your friends are - and I'm uncomfortable with that."
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Lauren Shields didn't like the idea that her every move on the Internet might be tracked and reported to who-knows-whom, so she downloaded a free program to shut out the online trackers.
That's when the Decatur seminary student found out just how many snooping eyes were upon her. With each website she visited, the new software showed her an alert, revealing which companies were recording her every click. Some had household names such as Facebook and Google; others she didn't even know.
"It's none of their business. That's my private life," said Shields, 30. "It means they are compiling a database on you -- where you go and who your friends are -- and I'm uncomfortable with that."
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Upon reading recent news stories about how Facebook tracks almost everywhere he goes on the Internet, Jim Kress grew outraged.
The consultant from Northville, Mich., subsequently learned Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Adobe and many other companies also exhaustively track his online activities. "I was very unnerved to discover the extent of all the other tracking that was done by nearly every site on the Web," he says.
So Kress, 61, did some homework about a powerful class of online tools and services - most of them free - designed to block online behavioral tracking.
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When you go online, do you know who's tracking you? Advertisers want access to your preferences, your social network, your location and your search history. Now, Boston startup Abine is trying to give consumers more control over their personal information. The 2-year-old company makes software that blocks unwanted Web tracking. Its service also removes people from online databases. Abine's timing is good, as Facebook and other companies are taking a lot of flak over user privacy.
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How annoying is the Web? I'm not talking about the nonstop distractions, the social-media window into human stupidity, or even the endless pop-up ads that block your view of the screen. I'm talking about the utter loss of privacy that most consumers have suffered online, yet rarely think about.
Sure, the Web is a net positive (we hope), but there are costs. When you visit any website, you leave a record of who you are, where you are, and what you looked at.
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Cambridge, MA
-- Abine, Inc., The Online Privacy Company, announced that due to recent media coverage and an influx of concerned users, it is accelerating the release of its social network and privacy protection software Do Not Track Plus. Abine will immediately give away up to 100,000 pre-release licenses to customers who can download them from http://www.donottrackplus.com/giveaway.php
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When you click a Facebook "Like" button on other Web sites to tell your friends about a cool band, favorite political candidate or yummy cake recipe, you may know that you are also giving intelligence to Facebook the company, which makes money through targeted advertising.
But did you know that even if you don't hit the button, Facebook knows you were there?
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If you want to make sure you aren't being tracked online, the most effective method might be to block ads altogether, according to a new study by researchers at Stanford University.
The findings, from computer science PhD student Jonathan Mayer, raise questions about the lengths people must go to if they want to ensure they aren't being tracked across different websites. Read more...
With a growing number of technologies tracking almost every step of your journey across the Web each day, Abine Inc. believes someone needs to be watching out for your online privacy full-time.
The venture-backed Cambridge startup aims to fill that role by providing technology that serves as a counter to the trackers, and that is "100 percent on the consumers' side," said Rob Shavell, Abine's co-founder and vice president of business development. Read more...
Ever contemplate just how much of your sensitive personal information is floating around in cyberspace? Ever wonder how you can mitigate that problem, or prevent it from happening in the first place? Sarah Downey, a privacy analyst with online privacy company Abine, Inc., joins us to discuss what consumers can do to prevent their sensitive information from getting on the Internet, and how to deal with what's already out there. Read more...
Just how prevalent are "supercookies"? These computer tracking files, which are stored in places that are different from regular "cookies" and can be used to "respawn" cookies that users delete, have been found on major websites such as MSN and Hulu. But recent research indicates that "respawning" trackers might recently have been used on hundreds of smaller sites as well. Read more...
With a quick search of your name on any given "peoplefinder" website, you'll see your name, date of birth, names of family members, current and past addresses, your phone number and gender. Some sites will also reveal your marital status, your hobbies, your online profiles, and maps or a photo of your house.
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The online analytics firm KISSmetrics quietly overhauled its web tracking methods over the weekend, and is now permitting users to block its surveillance, in a hurried response to a report slamming the company for using sneaky techniques to track web users who visit some of the biggest sites on the net. Read more...
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 12th, 2011 Abine, Inc., The Online Privacy Company, announced the closing of a $5m Series A round of funding to extend its leadership in online privacy.
"The fundamental way that people use the Web today and the way that Web companies collect people's personal information has changed radically in the years between Friendster and Facebook. Controlling our online privacy has become a universal issue: consumers want basic choice and control over how their personal information is tracked, collected and used," said Bill Kerrigan, Abine President & CEO.
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Abine, a company that specializes in Web privacy, has upgraded a Firefox extension that can more precisely block ad networks and websites from tracking users' behavior.
The extension is called the Targeted Advertising Cookie Opt-Out or TACO. The extension was designed to stop websites from setting cookies, or small data files, within a person's Web browser, which can then later be read by the company and used to track people's movements on their websites.
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CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 28th, 2011 Abine, Inc., The Online Privacy Company, announced the availability of its Targeted Advertising Cookie Opt-out (TACO) version 4. TACO 4 represents the most comprehensive solution offered to date to control how web sites track you and stop them from building a detailed profile of you based on the history of your online behavior.
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[Video] David Shadowfax says he's been losing business because of what's written about him online. Getting the tarnish off his name has not been easy since the incident more than two years ago.
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The app frenzy is firing the browser wars and accelerating the need for browser development and updates. Chrome seems to update daily, Firefox is getting faster in response and Microsoft is talking IE 10 just IE9 gets fully out of the gate.
Because of the constant changes, it's hard to truly evaluate any given browser on any given day. Even so, there are certain key elements that distinguish one browser from another in terms of security. Here's how two of them, Firefox 4 and Internet Explorer 9, measure up:
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Facebook has had its share of privacy issues in the past, and the company has been publicly flogged several times for those missteps. There have also been very public security-related blunders, so it was refreshing to see the company take so many steps in the right direction earlier this year by introducing an always-on HTTPS option, simplifying privacy controls, and unveiling the Safety Center. The news lately for Facebook had been largely positive, and the company certainly didn't need a fiasco like what has now surfaced to deal with.
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CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Abine, Inc., The Online Privacy Company, announced that effective immediately, William Kerrigan would join the company in the role of President & CEO.
"Bill has both a strong passion and a stellar background for running the online privacy company -- he has built and grown large businesses based on downloadable client software, consumer security and subscription revenue models," said Eugene Kuznetsov, Abine co-founder, who will now continue his involvement with the company in the role of Chairman.
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The next time you spend an hour Googling that weird rash on your arm, keep in mind that hundreds of bugs are watching too -- and that you may never know who knows what you've been doing or what they might do with that knowledge.
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As people's lives move online, controlling how much personal information leaks into the public domain becomes increasingly important -- and difficult.
Experts recommend the preliminary step of simply typing your name into one of the many general search engines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo, or people-finding sites such as ZabaSearch.com, Spokeo.com or Honestly.com.
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As more of our social lives, shopping sprees and dating misadventures take place online, we leave behind, purposely or not, a growing supply of personal information.
Marketers, employers, suitors and even thieves and stalkers are piecing together mosaics of who we are. Even when it is accurate, it may not present a pretty picture.
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As marketers face increasing pressure to compile information about consumers, a leading Cambridge privacy expert fears that vast databases on people's Web surfing histories could land in the hands of employers, college admission officers or Big Brother.
"We're in the early stages of this information getting pulled together in a way for people who make decisions on risk," said Rob Shavell, 37, co-founder of Cambridge's Abine, an Internet privacy firm.
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Just a year ago, the discussion about whether websites could be prevented from tracking visitors was an arcane topic limited to hard-core privacy activists - and dismissed by many as fundamentally impossible: The equivalent of the Do Not Call list, the naysayers argued, would technically lead to more tracking.
But now Do Not Track has evolved into something simpler - a signal sent by your browser to a website.
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A company that builds tools to give greater privacy online released a free browser extension on Tuesday that lets users selectively decide which websites they will allow to track them.
The extension, from the company Abine, is called "Do Not Track Plus," and is compatible with Mozilla's Firefox browser.
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CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Abine, Inc. The Online Privacy Company, announced the availability of Do Not Track Plus (DNT+), a free add-on giving consumers a single way to cover multiple proposed Do Not Track standards.
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IE9 has an important new feature -- Tracking Protection -- which is designed to prevent companies monitoring your web browsing. We show you how to activate it.
Many websites -- including Microsoft's own MSN, which is the default home page for Internet Explorer -- display adverts. However, it is possible for these commercial organisations to use various legitimate tricks to track where you go on the web.
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Over the summer, Pulitzer Prize-winning technology journalist Julia Angwin told us about the various tracking technologies that companies secretly install on websites in order to monitor user behavior.
Only six months later, these technologies have migrated outside of our hard drives and into our televisions.
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As the surreptitious tracking of Internet users becomes more aggressive and widespread, tiny start-ups and technology giants alike are pushing a new product: privacy.
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Microsoft's "do not track" browser proposal got a boost Thursday when the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), a Web standards body, gave Microsoft's plan its stamp of approval.
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If you're reading this in the newspaper, you can look around, flip the pages, and find plenty of ads. You can also be reasonably sure how those ads got there - companies trying to sell you stuff want you to know who they are. If you're reading this online, that last assumption isn't so clear.
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Among the most significant new features in Internet Explorer 9 is a framework for giving users control over their online privacy. Microsoft announced Tracking Protection a few months ago and has shown a few demos since. Last week it gave the public its first crack at actually using the technology in the IE9 Release Candidate.
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Cambridge, MA
-- Abine, the online privacy company, acquires proven technology for controlling targeted advertising; Updated version of TACO stops more trackers, displays cookies and supports IE.
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If you're an ad-supported website owner or a marketer using the Web, then you know the value of online user data. Web tracking and online behavioral targeting have transformed the ability of advertisers and marketers to connect with likely customers, and helped pay for a Web that offers tremendous content value and personalization to consumers. But with proposals for increased consumer privacy controls, that may be about to change. Not since CAN-SPAM has there been the potential for such a tectonic shift in the world of online marketing.
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Many of the nation's top credit card companies are now using high-tech marketing techniques that let them change their online offers on the fly, based on shoppers' surfing habits. That means that you and a friend across town, who happen to have identical credit records, might see different offers at the same card site at the same time. Although that might seem odd, card companies say it's part of a strategy to offer deals better suited to each individual.
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There are a number of companies that hope to make a business out of protecting consumers' online reputations.
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Recently Abine announced a new service called DeleteMe that states it will remove accounts and content from social networks, help users get control of personal information already made public, block junk mail, and more. They have a video introducing the service (embedded below.)
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It was not too long ago we were outraged by the advice of Google CEO Eric Schmidt to change our names, and laughing at the need to erase our digital footprints as the stuff of author dreams. Now, thanks to privacy worms, the rise of third-party cookies and targeted online ads, those thoughts have become a holy grail of digital life. And with a new tool released this week, the solution is now a reality.
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Remember the 1995 movie The Net--when Sandra Bullock frightened audiences with the prospect of having your identity deleted in cyberspace? How times have changed. With the rise of third-party cookies and ads that watch your online behavior, removing embarassing personal information from the Internet has almost become a holy grail of digital life. Bullock's situation seems almost desirable in retrospect.
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How many old accounts do you have at (once popular) sites? How are credit card companies pre-approving you? DeleteMe knows your personal information is "as good as gold" on the Internet -- and they're looking to protect you (while making a buck off from it, too).
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CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Abine, Inc. The Online Privacy Company, announced the availability of its first-of-a-kind DeleteMe Web content removal service. Like a Delete Button for the Internet, just click and experts go to work to cancel old accounts, remove unwanted search results, and cut through corporate red tape to stop misuse of personal information.
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The Federal Trade Commission recently announced its intention to promote the addition of a "do not track" mechanism in Web browsers. FTC Chairman Jon Lebowitz said the agency would offer "best practices" to browser makers, according to Declan McCullagh's Politics and Law blog, but wouldn't seek legislation mandating the feature, which likely made browser developers breathe easier.
With just a little effort, you can set Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Google Chrome to clear out and block the cookies most online ad networks and other Web trackers rely on to build their valuable user profiles.
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By now, we all know that the Internet can find out a lot about us. There are many companies that use this information to track our habits.
With this information, Websites can make assumptions about who we are. They can find out where we live, our yearly income, medical conditions and more. The less-sinister companies use this information to serve ads.
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Online advertisers track your behavior. Google, Facebook, and other services use "targeted ads," or "behaviorial ads," to refine advertisements based on users' Web-surfing habits, and make them more effective and, most importantly, more lucrative. But a new proposal by the Federal Trade Commission aims to curb that.
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If you have ever worried about specifically aimed ads that seem aware of your private moments on the Web, such as looking at sites for kitten-heel pumps, eczema medications or how to get out of debt, here is something else to fret about. Keeping your computer free of tracking programs is not easy because of the ad industry's aggressive and sophisticated efforts, says Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy.
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If you've never been targeted by an ad because of your online behavior, then you're probably just not paying much attention. According to an informal survey by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), more than 80% of advertising campaigns in 2009 involved tracking of some sort. The advertising business, in short, loves online tracking just about as much as privacy advocates hate it.
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You are being watched.
Your Facebook friends are watching you. So are their Facebook friends, and total strangers. The guys who run Facebook, too. Your keystrokes are being logged. Your mouse-clicks are being monitored and digested. Your behavioral patterns are being analyzed, monetized: what you buy on Amazon, who you follow on Twitter, where you say you eat on Yelp, your most shameful Google searches.
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A Wall Street Journal investigation into online privacy has found that popular children's websites install more tracking technologies on personal computers than do the top websites aimed at adults.
The Journal examined 50 sites popular with U.S. teens and children to see what tracking tools they installed on a test computer. As a group, the sites placed 4,123 "cookies," "beacons" and other pieces of tracking technology.
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New companies are popping up to help people control their privacy online, but they're facing a challenge in getting people to pay, Cari Tuna writes in an article in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal. Digits spoke with one of the the founders of a start-up, Abine, that is aiming to get people to do just that - eventually. For now, Abine provides a free program that can be added to the Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers to help users keep track of the information they give out online and control things like the technologies used in behavioral targeting.
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This house believes that governments must do far more to protect online privacy.
People who want privacy have no better resource to turn to than themselves. Being more careful with personal information-learning how internet communications work, withholding personal information more often and meting it out carefully when appropriate-is the only reliable privacy protection.
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One of the fastest-growing online businesses is the business of spying on Internet users by using sophisticated software to track movements through the Web, so that the information can be sold to advertisers.
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You're being watched.
Every time you open a web browser, someone - maybe hundreds and people and corporations - start silently tracking your every move. The tracking is so detailed that the web site you are viewing is likely to know your age; your income; your address, as well as the types of things you like to do and buy - just from your computer's IP address...
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Microsoft crippled online privacy protections in the latest version of its Internet Explorer browser, due to vigorous opposition from Microsoft's advertising executives and ad industry representatives, the Wall Street Journal reported.
IE8's architects planned to build sophisticated, default tools into the IE8 browser to thwart online tracking and profiling by advertisers who track users to place targeted ads. These so-called third-party networks use those distributed web sites to place cookies, hidden tracking beacons, and Flash cookies in users' browsers in order to create profiles of a user.
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The Internet is rife with surveillance technology, but you can cover some of your tracks
Visitors to almost every major website are tracked online, a Journal investigation has found. But there are ways to limit the snooping. Web browsing activity is tracked by use of "cookies," "beacons" and "Flash cookies," small computer files or software programs installed on a user's computer by the Web pages that are visited. Some are useful. But a subset ("third party" cookies and beacons) are used by companies to track users from site to site and build a database of their online activities.
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Abine is a free Firefox extension for online privacy from "The online privacy company" of the same name. It is also the winner of our Firefox extensions contest. Abine makes it easy to manage your privacy online, including using Twilio to mask your phone number while registering for services.
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As part of each week's Startup Report, Mass High Tech highlights five startup companies, and their business goals, that are profiled in the New England Tech Directory. With each week's Startup Watch, Mass High Tech will choose the weekly featured companies by soliciting nominations through a poll of 10 companies, with links to their profiles in the New England Tech Directory.
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Rob Shavell form Abine contacted me after reading a Mint.com article I wrote, and wondered if I would be interested in reviewing their new solution that's currently in beta testing, along with their website and anything else that might be relevant. According to their website, Abine was founded in 2008 and ""provides Internet privacy solutions for consumers. Abine's products and services allow regular people to regain control over their personal information while continuing to browse, interact and shop online".
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...On the Internet, users supply the raw material that helps generate billions of dollars a year in online advertising revenue. Search requests, individual profiles on social networks, Web browsing habits, posted pictures and many Internet messages are all mined to serve up targeted online ads.
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As privacy snafus mount across companies such as Facebook Inc. and AT&T Inc., venture capitalists have spotted a new market opening and are pumping millions of dollars into privacy-related start-ups.
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Here's something that's going to find a home in many people's browsers, I reckon. If you are already running the Taco 3 anti-cookie add-on for Firefox you've already got this installed from the time of writing this review. If not, give it a try, I think it's a useful one.
What the add-on does is to present you with a comprehensive report of what a website is up to, behind the scenes, as soon as you arrive...
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Some things are good. Some things are very good. Some things are very, very good. But this is better.
You may have noticed that I am paranoid about my privacy. It is for me to give away; not for others to take without my knowledge. The problem is that when out surfing, they tend to just take it. And I want to know who takes what.
That's why this is so very good. It is Abine for Mozilla Firefox 0.523. It's an add-on. And it's free.
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Online privacy is a hot topic at the moment, especially when it comes to the browser and social networks. Online privacy company Abine is launching today to provide consumers with comprehensive tools to control and protect their personal information online. Abine has also acquired Firefox privacy add-on T.A.C.O., which is short for "Targeted Advertising Cookie Opt-out." TACO allows any Internet user to opt-out from personally targeted advertising.
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A browser extension for Firefox has been combined with a set of privacy applications that give users more control over how their personal information is shared online.
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Cambridge, MA
-- Abine, Inc. announced today the wider availability of its growing suite of tools to help consumers take back control of their online privacy at www.abine.com.
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Cambridge, MA
-- Abine, the online privacy company, acquires proven technology for controlling targeted advertising; Updated version of TACO stops more trackers, displays cookies and supports IE.
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