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 Issue 154: CureZone/Alexa Toolbar and Your Privacy 
by Webmaster
9 year
11,351
Newsletter
Issue 154: CureZone/Alexa Toolbar and Your Privacy
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http://curezone.com/forums/fd50.asp?f=83
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In the previous newsletter, I offered you to download a toolbar with CureZone
logo on it.
I have the toolbar installed on my browser, and it helps me get to CureZone quickly, it
blocks pop-ups, it makes searching easier, and it quickly gives the most
important info on all web sites
that I visit. It also has a direct link to archived pages, where you can find
previous versions of missing or edited web pages.
This toolbar is developed by Alexa (an Amazon.com company), and BY DEFAULT, IT COLLECTS
AND STORES INFORMATION like your IP address, time and date, domain name, cookies,
shopping preferences, search preferences and full URL
of every single web page you visit.
Some people expressed a concern that similar free tools are not 100%
free. The real cost is loss of your web privacy!
Do you really want to let Amazon.com know all your shopping preferences?
Do you really want them to know about all the web pages you visited, and all the
searches you performed?
Well, I personally don't care.
For me, benefits are higher then the cost, cost being sharing my surfing
preferences with Alexa.
But there are people who do care. In this newsletter I will argue
their case and I will present all info provided by Alexa. I will look at
this toolbar with the critical mind. And, in the end, it will be your
decision to keep it or to remove it. You can easily remove it by clicking
on the main menu (marked with an arrow on the next picture).
How to uninstall the toolbar?
Alexa Toolbars may be uninstalled using your computer’s
Add/Remove Programs feature. Open your Windows Start menu, go to Settings, click
on Control Panel, and then double click on Add/Remove Programs. Click on Alexa
and then click the remove button. The next time you open a new browser window,
the toolbar should be gone.
There is just one thing that you have to know about web servers. Any web site you visit on the web, will automatically store personally identifiable information about you, like your IP address, time and date, domain name, cookies and URL of every single web page you visit on that website. That is a default behavior of a web server software. I just want you to know that what Alexa does is similar to what other sites are doing, when it comes to information gathering. The difference is, Alexa knows what you did on Yahoo, but unless you install a Yahoo toolbar,
Yahoo don't know what you do while surfing on Amazon.com.
What types of information does Alexa toolbar collect?
Info from:
http://pages.alexa.com/help/privacy.html?p=TBMenu_W_t_40_L1
Alexa's toolbar service collects and stores information about the web pages you
view, the data you enter in online forms and search fields, and the products you
purchase online while using the toolbar service. Although Alexa does not attempt
to analyze web usage data to determine the identity of any Alexa user, some
information collected by the toolbar service is personally identifiable. Alexa
aggregates and analyzes the information it collects to improve its service and
to prepare reports about aggregate web usage and shopping habits.
If you download and install the Toolbar Service software, which provides the
Alexa toolbar, Alexa collects any information voluntarily
provided by you during the installation and registration process, which can
include your e-mail address as well as demographic information such as gender,
age, occupation, household income, zip code and country. Alexa also collect the
name of and information about any advertisement that brought you to the Alexa
download. Any e-mail address that you give to Alexa during the installation process is
kept separate from information collected during your use of the Toolbar Service
and is not used to correlate your identity to Web usage path or shopping
information. Demographic information is correlated to Web usage and shopping
information collected during your use of the Toolbar Service, but Alexa does not
attempt to determine your identity by analyzing this information.
When you download the software, and at times during your use of the Alexa
website and Toolbar Service,
Alexa transmits Alexa cookies to
the hard drive of your computer. These cookies assign
your Web browser a unique series of numbers, letters, or characters that enable
Alexa's servers to recognize and identify your Web browser when you are using
the Toolbar Service. They also enable Alexa to track and store information about
your Web usage path and online shopping while using the Toolbar Service. See
below for more information about how Alexa uses this data.
When you use the Toolbar Service,
Alexa collects information about the websites
you visit, the searches you perform when you use the "search" function, and the
pages you view. This information allows Alexa to provide you with information about
the Web page you are viewing (Alexa's Site Info) and to build Alexa's database of
information about related Web pages (Alexa's Related Links).
Thus, for every Web page you view while using the Toolbar Service, the Alexa
software transmits and stores the following information from your computer to
Alexa:
- Your IP address, which may include a
domain name.
- The full URL of the Web page you are visiting.
- General information about your browser.
- General information about your computer's operating system.
- Your Alexa cookie number.
- The date and time the above information is logged.
All of the above information is logged together in a single data string for
each Web page you visit. Each string is logged in Alexa's database in the
chronological order received from hundreds of thousands of users.
When you perform searches using the search function
available on alexa's toolbar service software or on the alexa website, you often
will be taken to a website detail page at amazon.com. If you have an account on
amazon.com and an amazon.com cookie enabled, your search results will be
transmitted to and logged by amazon.com and may be correlated by amazon.com with
any personally identifiable information you may have previously provided to
amazon.com.
If you use the E-mail This Site feature,
Alexa collects your message, the recipient e-mail address(es), and your e-mail
address for the purpose of sending the e-mail. Alexa doves not send other e-mail
to these address(es). If you choose, Alexa can save your e-mail address in a
cookie on your computer to make this feature easier to
use.
If you use Internet Explorer's Related Links feature,
Alexa collect the full
URL of the Web page for which you requested the Related Links
information; your IP address, which may include a
domain name; the date and time of your request; and
computer and connection information such as browser type and version, operating
system, and platform. This information is stored in the same logs as the
usage paths. Alexa does not transmit
cookies to your computer when you use this Internet Explorer feature. If you
use Netscape's What's Related feature, Alexa receives from Netscape the URL of the
Web page for which you requested the related links information with the
information that appears after the "?" stripped out; your IP
address, which may include a domain name; the date and
time of your request; and computer and connection information such as browser
type and version, operating system, and platform. Alexa does not transmit
cookies to your computer when you use this Netscape
feature.
How to change some options?
You can disable some options, by clicking on the main menu (marked with
arrow) beside "a"
(a drop down menu) and by clicking on "Options".
You will get to the web page containing options:
Glossary of Terms
Related Links
Related Links are lists of websites that are related to the website you are
viewing. Whenever you visit a Web page, the Alexa Toolbar Service retrieves
information from the Alexa servers to suggest other related Web pages that might
be of interest to you. Alexa's Related Links enable you to "surf" from one
related site to another, discovering interesting and unique sites as you go,
without having to return to a search engine.
Usage Paths
A usage path is the trail of requests automatically transmitted to and logged
by Alexa as a user surfs the Internet with the Alexa toolbar enabled. Usage
paths consist of the following data for each Web page visited by an Alexa user:
(a) the IP address assigned to the user; (b) the date and time the Web page is
visited by the user; (c) the user's browser type and version; (d) the user's
operating system and version; (e) the user's Alexa cookie; and (f) the full URL
that the site assigns to the Web page.
Uniform Resource Locator
A URL (or uniform resource locator) is the full Web address of a file or
document you view when browsing the Internet. With most browsers, such as
Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator, the URL of every Web page
that you view is displayed in a window near the top of the screen. Typically, a
URL consists of four parts: protocol, server (or domain) where the file is
located, path, and filename. However, some URLs have no path or filename. An
example of a URL is:
http://www.alexa.com/company/index.html
http is the protocol
www.alexa.com is the server
company/ is the path
index.html is the filename
Internet Protocol Address
An Internet Protocol ("IP") address is a set of numbers that is automatically
assigned to your computer each time you connect to the Internet. When you use
your Web browser to request a Web page from another computer on the Internet,
your Web browser automatically gives that computer your IP address so that the
data you request can be sent to your computer. For many users who access the
Internet from a dial-up Internet service provider (ISP), the IP address will be
different every time they log on ("dynamic" IP addresses); others may be
assigned only one IP address that remains the same from session to session
("static" IP addresses) (more common with broadband ISPs).
Domain Name
A domain name identifies one or more IP addresses. Domain names are used in
URLs to identify particular Web pages. For example, in the
URL http://pages.alexa.com/company/index.html, the domain
name is alexa.com.
Cookies
A cookie is a small data file consisting of numbers, letters, or other
characters that the Alexa server sends to your browser and stores on your
computer's hard drive when you visit the Alexa website or download the Alexa
Toolbar Service software. The Alexa servers can access this cookie when you
return to the website or use the Alexa Toolbar Service. The cookie automatically
identifies your computer, but not your identity, to our servers while you use
the Alexa Toolbar Service or the Alexa website. If you have The Web You Made
feature turned on, your cookie also contains information about the last several
websites that you visited.
Amazon.com cookies may be present on your hard drive if you are already an
Amazon.com customer. If you are not already an Amazon.com customer, Alexa may
transmit Amazon.com cookies to your computer to enable you to put products in
your Amazon.com shopping cart through the Toolbar Service. These cookies alone
do not reveal your identity to Alexa, and Alexa does not use these cookies to
try and learn your identity.
You can configure your browser to accept all cookies, reject all cookies, or
notify you when a cookie is set. (Each browser is different, so check the "Help"
menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences.) However,
if a browser is set to reject cookies, it may encounter functionality problems
with the Alexa Toolbar Service.
Toolbar
The Alexa toolbar consists of buttons or links on your Web browser and
enables you to use the Alexa Toolbar Service. The toolbar provides information
for each Web page a user views, including a rating for the level of traffic the
page receives, reviews of the page provided by other Alexa users, contact
information for the owner of the Web page, site statistics, Related Links, and,
in some cases, comparison shopping information.
Browser
A browser, short for Web browser, is a software application used to locate
and display Web pages. Two popular browsers are Netscape Navigator and Microsoft
Internet Explorer.
Detail Page
A detail page is the page, displayed by either Alexa or Amazon.com, that
provides details about a website, provides a user the ability to read and write
reviews, and provides personalized recommendations for other websites and/or
products that the user may be interested in.
There are over 500 active forums/message boards
on CureZone,
covering just about any health subject that you may be interested
in.
If you would like to suggest a new forum,
post your suggestion here
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Issue 154: CureZone/Alexa Toolbar and Your Privacy
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