Collusion Firefox Addon Tracks Your Trackers

I’m sure that most of you readers have realized that I’m more pro-humanity than I am pro-consumerism. I’m not naive enough to say that I’m not a consumer, because even I have physical needs that must be fulfilled. But what I do try to do is make legitimate decisions based upon a well-thought process of eliminations. When I go to large consumer brand name stores or even Amazon.com, do I take close look at the everything about the products that I select? How about those smaller, more personal selections? How about my collections?

• Are they environmentally conscious? – they don’t have to be green, but at least have thought about it before creating the product.
• Are they practical? If not, do I love them enough to get them?
• Will I plan to keep it and use it forever, or near enough to it?
• Did I make the right choice of sellers who deserve my purchase power?

You get the gist of my process – I want to be as responsible as I can be in my actions. There are certain places that I’ll never go to because their actions go against everything that I believe in.

Now that we’re smack in the middle of the digital age, we have to be aware that there are people who watch our movements. In the past, you would have to be worried about their bad intentions to harm you. But now, you have to worry that they are trying to tie you down to a pattern of behaviors. Google DoubleClick is one way that businesses are tracking their consumers online actions through HTTP cookies in order to provide them with “more personal services and products tailored to what you like”. Since many security software companies consider this to be spyware and malware activity, it’s not something that they let through by choosing to remove your cookies whenever you do a system virus sweep (hopefully that’s more often than not). Well now we might be able to fight back, or at least stay informed with Collusion Firefox Addon.

Collusion Firefox Addon can now help you see just how your being tracked through your cookies. The image above is just a demo, and I’m almost too afraid to see what my system could look like, even after my cookies have been removed. This is the reason why I am sometimes hard on business activities. If they’re being socially responsible, then I have no problems. If they act similarly to the way I try to act, then I’ll support them. But if they’re doing things like online activity tracking, hiring people to add blog comments that increase a company’s online ranking, or not simply engaging in honest business practices, then they won’t get my support or my shout-outs.

I write this blog so that I can learn and share, get inspired to create, share my own experiences in my professional world, and simply celebrate those things in this world that need to be brought into the light. You won’t see ads appear on this blog, because I intend to reach my audience the hard way: touching them honestly with my words while celebrating things that inspire me. I don’t know if I’ll succeed, but I’ll always do my best.  I hope that you all enjoy this ride!

– informed by a DesignTaxi post