Monday, May 18, 2009

That's The Way The Cookie Crumbles

A reader writes in with the following query and observations:

"How do most aldermen pay for their Ward websites? Have you ever noticed that AldermanShiller.com is paid for by her political organization and has the required political advertising disclosure at the bottom of the page?"

Citizens for Shiller. Approved by Ald. Helen Shiller. Terms & Conditions. A copy of our report is or will be available for purchase from the Cook County Clerk. Site by Maggie Marystone

"Also, take a look at the terms and conditions statement, which basically says
'This info isn’t necessarily true'":
Disclaimer: Citizens for Shiller does not warrant or make any representations as to the quality, content, accuracy, or completeness of the information, text graphics, links and other items contained on this server or any other server. Such materials have been compiled from a variety of sources, and are subject to change without notice from Citizens for Shiller.
"Finally, look at her privacy statement: She believes in private blogging – Unless of course she wants to subpoena Uptown Update [and other blogs and forums] to find out the names of their private bloggers."
Privacy Policy: Alderman Shiller has always believed in the right of individuals to protect their privacy, including those individuals who use the internet. For this reason, this site does not collect any personal information about you when you visit, unless you provide information through email, by filling out the volunteer form, or by donating. The web hosting service does gather certain statistical information regarding total number of hits to the website, and does keep track “unique” hits based on IP addresses. It is Citizen for Shiller’s policy, however, not to attempt to analyze the individual IP addresses or correlate this data with any other data.
This website does not use 'cookies' or other means on the site to track your visit in any way.

That's funny. When we visit http://www.aldermanshiller.com/, this is the window that pops up. Curious.

Incidentally, as far as the subpoenas go, Uptown Update is still being represented by, and is receiving legal advice from, the lawyers at EFF.org (Electronic Frontier Foundation).

4 comments:

  1. At least Alderman Shiller is consistant.

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  2. UU: Could you post on the issue of privacy and Google? I have operated under the assumption that there is only a veil between blogger/poster and public; not a wall. In other words, there is no right to privacy, per se, when operating (a) online, (b) in the public sphere, and (c) using someone else's software with licensing/use terms that seem pretty clear, at least to me. What am I missing?

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  3. My spy wae notified me Shilleritas were trying to intall a cookie in my computer.

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  4. Honestly, they probably just don't realize that they're using cookies, because they didn't explicitly go about implementing them (in other words, they're not very smart).

    The cookies named __utma etc. are set by the Google Analytics script.

    Mosvisitor is (and any others most likely are) set by the CMS they are using (Mambo or Joomla).

    Here's some info on the Google Analytics cookies:
    http://www.morevisibility.com/analyticsblog/from-__utma-to-__utmz-google-analytics-cookies.html

    If you use Firefox, there are add-ons that will allow you to block these specifically...

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