Ok, haha, so it's funny. What else are people tracking? Twitter is not secure by any means, and there's no way to be totally safe online even if you lock your tweets. You're being tracked online wherever you go. Yes you can use services like Anonymizer which are very good, but still you can be traced. Even if you did nothing wrong, your name, email, location and statistics are logged and saved somewhere. Even if you clean out cookies in your computer, there's still a file on you. I can tell what page you came in from and where you exited to. If you for instance, go to one site and then exit it and leave for a porn site, bingo, you'll soon find lots more Viagra and naked chicks in your spam box. If you click on any of those emails, you've done the spammer a favor - you've just validated your email as a good one to sell on the spam market.
On Twitter, if you dare even jokingly type in the word "porn", you'll be inundated by the bot applications which are written and set to scan Twitter keywords constantly. Type in the word boner or sex? Hello - you now have followers who are really bots trying to lure you to naked pictures where more spyware resides. Even if you erase a post, it's still cached out there in cyberspace.
Biggest mistakes that lead to Tracking Applications getting too close for comfort?
- Using a real name
- Using an email you use to pay bills or do business and personal things with
- Giving too much info about where you live, landmarks nearby, posting your email address
- Your kids just trying to be friendly and posting too much info
- Photos of you and your kids (think Michael Jackson was crazy for covering his kid's faces? Nope, he was being a protective parent, like him or not)
- Taking Twitter quizzes and anything that says "sign in with your Twitter account"
- TwitPic - did you pay attention and check the box that says DON'T post on public timeline? Do you really need all the world knowing your personal business?
- Photo no-no's - License plates. Did you remember to blur any license plates before posting a pic? Addresses, landmarks?
- Signing up for Twitter, My Space, Facebook with your main email
- Taking surveys
As you can see there are many ways you can be tracked. Want to see just a teeny bit about what sites can tell about you? CLICK HERE to see right now. Trust me, they see and track a lot more than the basics.
IP addresses are tracked, though they don't trace directly to your home. They serve a general "area" that can extend for miles. Once you've put in your email address however, the apps have your general area, plus access to your email. Ever wonder how spam will put familiar names in the from or subject lines? One of my emails is a made up name, the ending is "adek" Suddenly spam arrives addressed to Mr. or Mrs. Adek, and even has the frigging audacity to include an attachment saying "Photos from Adek reunion". Are people so stupid that they'll open the attacment? Yep, someone did once, and now the scammers are milking it for all it's worth. There's a fool born every minute and I'm often shocked at what my clients innocently get themselves into.
My Twitter Test
My test for Twitter tracking apps and ads: Got a virgin Yahoo account. Kept it for months, no spam except the usual petty garbage you always get with Yahoo. The second I signed up for a Twitter account with it, I'm inundated with spam and all of it is relevant to things I've talked about or mentioned on Twitter. I do not use this account on anything but Twitter. Coincidence? The tracking of that email will dead end with Twitter since I use it exclusively for that. They will not be able to trace what else I sign up for with that account and make a profile on me? Getting it now?
While SEO people study marketing trends, I've been forced to study spamming trends. Next post will be exclusively about anti-spyware programs and how to keep your kids' browsing and downloading from harming computers in your household.
This post was timely since I just got done counseling a client yesterday who had ID theft via a so-called friendly application that got into his computer through social and dating sites. It
was running backdoor applications through ports thus using his computer as a server. He has a cable connection that's always on, so bingo, this is just what the hackers were looking for.
Social networking is fun, Twitter is fun, but, like I tell my clients; remember the old saying: "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"
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