Internet Privacy: A growing concern of the knowledgeable and growing threat to the oblivious – Part 2

For that reason, Facebook has revamped the security of the website and on the scale of 0-100 defined by PrivacyChoice in their privacy tool, PrivacyScore, it scored a whopping 94. Its major counterpart in the business of social network in the internet, Google + scored exactly 85. In fact, the whole network of Google, Inc. scored in the range of 85.

Among the well-known websites at the site that earned a good score, were some surprising names: Wikipedia earned a perfect 100 (as did PrivacyChoice). Dropbox, Pinterest, Twitter, Tumblr, and  Go Daddy were all rated 95. TripAdvisor scored a 93, WebMD a 92, and both Apple and Zynga clocked in at a solid 90.

In the middle zone, with scores of 80-89, are the full network of Google sites (85), Amazon (84), Travelocity and Ask (83), CNET (82), and Craigslist (80). No Microsoft-owned property was above the high 70s: Microsoft.com (78), Live.com and Skype (77), Bing (74), and MSN (72) all have work to do, privacy-wise.

One reason Facebook and Google score so highly is that both companies have signed consent decrees with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to provide regular audits of their privacy performance over the next few decades. In addition, both companies run their own extensive advertising and tracking networks, which means they have virtually no third-party trackers on their own sites; that gives them a big edge on the second part of the score.

In addition to being one of the most authentic privacy detection tools on the internet, PrivacyChoice also offers a number of tools and toolbars to stop companies from tracking the information about the users that visit these sites.

PrivacyChoice recommends using browser add-ons that limit tracking, such as its own TrackerBlock for Chrome and Ghostery (for Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, and Internet Explorer). Internet Explorer 9 has tracking protection built in, which you can enable with an array of custom Tracking Protection lists.

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Posted by Usman Khalid on Feb 21 2012. Filed under Sci-Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.