Digikey's website privacy and analytics

[floobydust]

Lately I notice Digikey's website is slow. It used to be a really fast website, but I'm waiting several seconds for third-party analytics to finish.

Looking at Digikey's privacy policy, it's pretty shitty.  They are sharing all your info with anyone, and leave it to you to go "opt out" at each tracking company, as if that achieves anything.
Just terrible. As if my search for an op-amp will tell them fuck all about my product selection criteria.

"Digi-Key may share information we collect through the Web Site, including personal information, with its product suppliers, for example, for market research and payment of commission to the supplier's agents.
Occasionally, Digi-Key may make the names and addresses of our customer list available to screened companies that offer products and/or services that may be of interest to you."

"If you have an open account with Digi-Key, credit and payment history will periodically be shared with credit reporting agencies."

"Digi-Key utilizes the User-ID feature of Google Analytics, which allows us to track individual users across multiple devices and sessions using the Web Site. "

Facebook, Bing, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tealum, MaxMind geotracking, Google Analytics, AddThis email address sharing, the list goes on.

It just seems to be the Zuckerberg/Cambridge Analytics crowd, data-mining and selling personal information in the name of "targeted advertising".

Does anyone see this as being invasive and overreaching?

[ConKbot]

As of late, If you're not using a script blocker which blocks 3rd party scripts from running, you're not browsing correctly. It takes a bit of effort to whitlist appropriate subdomains (i.e. If a separate domain is used for serving up stuff other than the main one), but once it's up and running,  everything is easy.

It also makes you more actively aware of who is the shitbird with a dozen trackers, who has just a googleanalytics tracker, and who is playing it clean.

[T3sl4co1l]

This.  Can recommend uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger.

Tim

[floobydust]

Loaded up uBlock Origin and it stops Digikey's crap, aside from them giving out your personal account information and IP etc. to unknown parties 

Making revenue selling your customer's personal information, I think it's an awful business model, kind of hate it actually.

The Facebook scandal, the stock has fully recovered and you would have made over 28% buying in the low and dismissing privacy 

[Stray Electron]

Lately I notice Digikey's website is slow. It used to be a really fast website, but I'm waiting several seconds for third-party analytics to finish.

Looking at Digikey's privacy policy, it's pretty shitty.  They are sharing all your info with anyone, and leave it to you to go "opt out" at each tracking company, as if that achieves anything.
Just terrible. As if my search for an op-amp will tell them fuck all about my product selection criteria.

"Digi-Key may share information we collect through the Web Site, including personal information, with its product suppliers, for example, for market research and payment of commission to the supplier's agents.
Occasionally, Digi-Key may make the names and addresses of our customer list available to screened companies that offer products and/or services that may be of interest to you."

"If you have an open account with Digi-Key, credit and payment history will periodically be shared with credit reporting agencies."

"Digi-Key utilizes the User-ID feature of Google Analytics, which allows us to track individual users across multiple devices and sessions using the Web Site. "

Facebook, Bing, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tealum, MaxMind geotracking, Google Analytics, AddThis email address sharing, the list goes on.

It just seems to be the Zuckerberg/Cambridge Analytics crowd, data-mining and selling personal information in the name of "targeted advertising".

Does anyone see this as being invasive and overreaching?

  I've blocked ALL of the "Social Media" sites by using the Hosts file.

[kaz911]

I have moved to Brave Browser not long ago..

6,789 Trackers Blocked
4,125 Ads Blocked
647 HTTPS Upgrades
10 minutes Estimated Time Saved

says its own statistics. But it works better than Chrome with ABP. A few sites do not work well - but all in all a very pleasant experience so far.

And you can still tag sites you want adds shown on.

[rdl]

I find it a bit ironic that the inventor of JavaScript, which is used to deliver the majority of advertising on the internet, has created a "secure browser".

[BillB]

As of late, If you're not using a script blocker which blocks 3rd party scripts from running, you're not browsing correctly. It takes a bit of effort to whitlist appropriate subdomains (i.e. If a separate domain is used for serving up stuff other than the main one), but once it's up and running,  everything is easy.

It also makes you more actively aware of who is the shitbird with a dozen trackers, who has just a googleanalytics tracker, and who is playing it clean.

   In addition to uBlock Origin, uBlock Matrix is a nice "element" blocker.  It does take a while to dial in the settings for a particular domain, but once done, your browsing speed (and safety, security, and privacy) increases significantly.

I allow first-party advertising elements (like Dave does on this site) to give those domains the advertising revenue they deserve.  However, I have no misgivings about blocking third-party advertisers.  Why?  Because the first party and usually the third-party have no idea what the underlying advertisements/scripts are doing.  These 3rd party ads are a major vector for malware and other crap. 

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yep this mass tracking stuff is a ridiculous epidemic.  What makes it worse is the fact that the majority of people don't seem to care so these companies just push further and further without being pushed back.  I find extensions like privacy badger only go so far they have ways to bypass all of that.

It's one thing to be tracked by a site, on their own site, but these tracking systems can track you outside of their site.  That's what I have the biggest issue with.  for example lot of the big trackers like Google and FB knows what sites you go to, what you say to people around you etc.  It's super invasive.

[rdl]

It has taken 20 years, but an entire generation has been conditioned to think that the way these companies operate is normal and to be expected. I was in my forties when the internet first started becoming widespread. I think it's borderline insanity to accept it as normal and unavoidable. America needs to implement something similar to GDPR, the sooner the better.

[DimitriP]

Making revenue selling your customer's personal information, I think it's an awful business model, kind of hate it actually.

It's not alsway "personal". Aggregate data or "user data" with no personaly identifiable information is not considered "personal".
Like your car; Keeps carfax in business.

Like you see in the movies about the old days before "wacking" someone. "It's not personal. It's business." 
Makes all the difference, doesn't it ?