RedPhantom posted at 12:00PM Sat, 22 February 2020 - #4381433

I'm not involved with the test and have not been told any more than you. Please give it some time. If I had to guess, the test was set to run for a specific time length, and those running it will act accordingly when the test is complete. Please be patient.

And please keep in mind the Admin are humans that need sleep and food, like the rest of us. They are not tied to their computers 24/7. It may take some time for them to respond.

True, I fully understand that staff need time off. I was the guy in charge of IT for many years, and it can be a thankless, high stress job. However, there is a tendency for IT staff, and companies to initiate ill will all on their own. This "test" is a prime example. Start it on Friday, with the people responsible off for the next two days. Brilliant if you want to really upset people. I had staff do similar, or try to do similar things. If I got wind of their plans, I would always stop them in their tracks, it's not the proper way to do business IMHO.

After further research, it appears the the real "Infolinks" is a "legitimate" company. They provide targeted ads (based on your browsing activity) like we are getting here. They also provide tracking info and analytics to other companies. They do collect machine/user specific information (they don't say what that information is), but "do not provide user specific information" to anyone else (do you believe that???).

They use tracking cookies to gather the information. If you have clicked on any of their adds, they have place a tracking cookie on your system. If you went to their site using the "?" on the ad, and opted out of seeing their ads, they placed a tracking cookie on your machine that will keep the ads silent, but track your browser usage. It's unclear if simply by going to a page where the adds show up if they are now tracking you or not (i.e just by coming to the forum, but not clicking on the add, though by closing the add, my guess is that they are placing a tracking cookie on your system). My guess is that since the first add that showed up when I saw the first "infolinks" add was from the last search I ran, they did either immediately place a cookie on my system, or maybe read the search history from my browser (also not cool). But for sure, if you have clicked on an ad, or opted out of the ads being shown, you are now being tracked.

Now the question is, just how much does Rendo get for running this "test" which is going to place tracking cookies on many (all??) of their patrons computers. By just running a "test", they have exposed their patrons to additional tracking, which no doubt they are getting compensated for (i.e. If you run a 7 day "test", we will pay you x amount for every cookie we place on a new un-tracked computer/tablet/phone, and you will get x payment for each of those computers for the next x number of months/years). So simply by running a test, then "listening to their users and stopping the activity", they have allowed .... no, actually they have encouraged or possibly ensured that their customers would have tracking cookies from a third party unknowingly placed on their devices. This is seriously un-cool, very unethical, and has seriously eroded my trust in a place where I have been a member for 22 years!!!

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