I’ve been getting a fair amount of spam recently

This one is pretty standard but I’ve had it about 60 times this week.

 

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Top Important

 

I am Mr Seyba Jean, a staff of BANK BICIA-B here in Burkina Faso. I am

very sorry about this sudden mail as I know it might come as a

surprise banging into your private life especially when we have not

met before. It was an urgent need for a foreign partner, which has

pushed me to send you this proposal. I know we have not met before,

but I am very optimistic that we might be able to establish the

necessary trust needed to execute this project.

 

I just need your services in a confidential matter regarding (fund) in

my bank.This requires a private arrangement.

 

You will receive these funds under legitimate arrangement that will

protect both of us. All legal documents will be carefully worked out

to ensure a risk free transfer. 50% of the total sum would be your own

portion at the end of this deal.

 

The said sum is the profit / interest my branch realized during a

period of 10 banking years. Further details will be sent to you as

soon as possible.

 

So if you are willing to assist, please get back to me soonest.

 

Thanks as I expect to hear from you soon.

 

My dearest regards.

 

Seyba Jean

Uprising spam

I’m always amazed how spammers use the misery of others in their scams

 

Hi there,

 

My name is Aisha daughter of Shukri Ghanem. We fled from Libya last year following the uprising against Col Muammar Gaddafi.

 

My father’s death is no longer news but my mother’s deteriorating health made me want to do this despite the fact that I barely know you. I believe in my late father’s philosophy: “risk many things in life; but not life itself”. I believe in taking business risk with strangers mainly to escape the spotlight and I hope you can do this for my family.

 

I have a rather unusual proposition having found you on the internet in desperation and I am here to surprise you with this extreme offer you can easily afford. It’s something that I believe could provide a great deal of profit to you if you give me a moment of your time. I would like to propose a joint venture with you because we are looking at investment opportunities in your area and we need a local presence to carry out our plans. Everything depends on you and ultimately how self-motivated you are.

 

Of course, you may simply have reservations about teaming with us when you don’t know my family. Please be assured that I want nothing more than what could be a very profitable joint venture and a lasting business relationship.

 

Please write back and I’ll explain everything in full detail.

 

Thank you.

 

Best Regard,

Aisha Ghanem.

Mobile Ad Choices App Debuts | Adweek

The mobile counterpart to the ad industrys ad choices self-regulatory program that allows consumers to opt-out of online-targeted ads is finally here. And yes, theres an app for it.Called Ad Control, the app gives consumers a way to opt out of cross-app advertising. Developed by Evidon, the app is now available in the Apple App Store. An Android version will be available later this month.When the Digital Advertising Alliance announces in two weeks its mobile privacy standards, Evidons app will allow for compliance.The DAA rolled out its ad choices program two years ago in response to growing concerns at the Federal Trade Commission and in the government that consumers needed to be given a choice to opt out of behaviorally targeted ads. Though regulators seem satisfied that the industry is working to protect consumer privacy online through self-regulation, theyve been pressing for a mobile solution, which the industry has been promising to deliver for more than a year.

via Mobile Ad Choices App Debuts | Adweek.

George Takei, Young Activists and Facebook Team Up to Make HRC Logo a Mega-Meme

As you’ve probably noticed, your Facebook feed turned red last Monday when all of your friends, particularly those in the US or with US friends, including people you had no idea had an opinion on gay marriage, changed their profile pictures to a little pink or white equals sign on a red background. The symbol is a re-colored version of the yellow-on-blue logo designed in 1995 by Stone/Yamashita who declined to comment for this story and its been changed a grand total of once since then. Anastasia Khoo, director of marketing for the Human Rights Campaign is possessive of the image, which looks a little like a corollary to the Swiss flag.

And is she biting her nails over all the variations the internet has come up with? “I have to say, I guess when we decided to make this decision it was almost preordained—in for a penny, in for a pound,” she said, “and I’ve loved it. I’ve been so impressed by the creativity weve seen out there, even from people like Martha Stewart.”

Even George Takei has had a go.

 

 

via George Takei, Young Activists and Facebook Team Up to Make HRC Logo a Mega-Meme | Adweek.

Who is Grabbing Your Data from Websites?

So this post is entitled “Who’s Grabbing Consumer Data from Publishers?” by AdAge but let’s be clear here what they mean is your data from most websites.

Consumers may not know how the world of web advertising works but pretty soon thanks to concerted efforts by the IAB in the UK and advertising campaigns by EDAA due in the summer they should be a bit better informed. In the meantime information is out there but it is on trade and industry blogs and news sites like AdAge.

For most consumers it’s a confusing world that’s hard to understand with company names they have never heard of and know little about. It’s always been one of the challenges of the AdChoices initiative, consumer education is key but enabling opt-out of tracking only works when you know who is tracking you. As can be seen below many of the trackers drop additional trackers so there is a daisy chain of third parties involved and likely only one initial relationship with the website you are actually visiting.

I should disclose here that I work for AOL Advertising so many of the companies we own drop cookies for this kind of tracking, it’s nothing sinister and we don’t want to know you as an individual, we simply want to group people together to package up as an audience.

So as they say in the TV adverts here’s the science bit;

Tracking tags are bits of code that enable ad serving, site analytics, audience-segmentation, and social sharing tools on websites. In other words, tags are what make the web tick. By the end of last year there were nearly 1,000 different tracking tags floating around the top 500 websites. That was over 50% more than the 645 unique trackers found in the first quarter of 2012, according to Evidon.

Evidon’s analysis of tracking tags for FoxNews.com. See links below to launch an interactive version of this chart for one dozen popular websites.

Those tags are pretty active, too. In many cases, one tracking tag installed directly by a site publisher might spawn others, and those still additional tags, and so on. Publishers and other data providers don’t always know whether tag spawning leads to the dissemination of actual consumer data gathered on their sites, or if it is merely part of the cookie-syncing process performed to match a cookie ID in one system to an ID in another for ad targeting purposes.

via Who’s Grabbing Consumer Data from Publishers? | DataWorks – Advertising Age.

Tesco buys Giraffe restaurants – Makes a change from Horse meat!

Supermarket group Tesco has bought the restaurant chain Giraffe for £48.6m.

The move will see the supermarket open Giraffe branches near to Tesco stores as it seeks to create “retail destinations” for customers.

Tesco will hope that the acquisition will help revitalise its UK business.

via BBC News – Tesco buys Giraffe restaurants.

ePrivacy – Google given $7 million Street View fine

I makes a change for North America to be a little more aggressive when it comes to challenging large corporates on privacy goofs than EU countries. France handed down an £87,000 (100,000 euro) penalty which whilst the largest ever handed out by CNIL pales into insignificance compared to our North American cousins. In the UK the ICO was simply not bothered enough and as Nick Pickles, head of UK privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch rightly put it “British regulators barely managed to slap Google on the wrist for this, so yet again British consumers seem to be left with weaker protection of their privacy than other countries,”.

via BBC News – Google hit by $7m Street View fine in US.

Alarm Bells for Privacy – Facebook ‘likes’ predict personality

The findings should “ring alarm bells” for users, privacy campaigners said.

The study used 58,000 volunteers who alongside their Facebook “likes” and demographic information also provided psychometric testing results – designed to highlight personality traits.

The Facebook likes were fed into algorithms and matched with the information from the personality tests.

The algorithms proved 88% accurate for determining male sexuality, 95% accurate in distinguishing African-American from Caucasian-American and 85% for differentiating Republican from Democrat.

Christians and Muslims were correctly classified in 82% of cases and relationship status and substance abuse was predicted with an accuracy between 65% and 73%.

The links clicked rarely explicitly revealed these attributes. Fewer than 5% of gay users clicked obvious likes such as gay marriage, for instance.

Instead, the algorithms aggregated huge amounts of likes such as music and TV shows to create personal profiles.

via BBC News – Facebook ‘likes’ predict personality.

Facebook Challenges Google’s Tech Dominance by Partnering With AOL, Adobe | Adweek

Facebook and Google aren’t exactly besties, and the social giant’s latest move won’t help matters. In recent weeks Facebook has made two friends through moves that will simultaneously help its own advertising business and hurt Google’s.

Last month, Adobe and AOL joined Facebook Exchange, the social network’s display retargeting platform beloved by direct-response advertisers who are typically big-time Google buyers. Google was conspicuously not included.

via Facebook Challenges Google’s Tech Dominance by Partnering With AOL, Adobe | Adweek.

Concern over new Mozilla browser settings | IAB UK

The Internet Advertising Bureau UK (IAB) expresses concern thatMozilla’s new browser cookie settings, which will come into effect in early April and will block third party cookies by default, will significantly undermine the openness of the ad-funded internet.

via Concern over new Mozilla browser settings | IAB UK.