Tech Talks

CSS & Privacy

I have heard stories about people getting users' browser history and using this data for evil. I have been asking myself for the last two weeks if this is really possible.

Today, I met the founder of AddToAny, a web sharing service similar to AddThis and ShareThis. We were talking about usability of their service and he told me that there are different levels of user oriented implementations in their service. I am not going to tell you all the methods he mentioned to me however one of the methods that they use gave me the answer that I have been looking for... It turns out the answers is "YES!" it is possible to get the list of sites from the browsing history.

After coming back home and searching for the ways to do it, I found a ticket at bugzilla.mozilla.org which was created in 2002. (Bug 147777 - :visited support allows queries into global history) Reading through comments, I found out that there does not exist a fix for this bug while obeying the specs. (read the comment thread if you like real brainstorming)

Implementations

There are several implementations on the web relying on this bug:

• Aza Raskin's SocialHistory.js, code which enables you to detect which social book marking sites your visitors use.
  
• Find out if your friends are watching porn!

• Estimate gender of your site visitors...

• Paul Stone's smart crawler
  

   

Limitations

:visited only tells if the exact URL is browsed however it doesn't give out the information for a domain name. So if your porn addict friend has never visited the homepage of the website, you will never learn if s/he has been on the site before...

Still Privacy

"Yes, I still do believe in privacy" and don't really want to share my browsing history with the third parties. However, as a UX engineer, I would use this bug whenever I can make use of it without being evil. Unless, the specs get updated, and this bug is fixed, it is out there and all yours. 

PS: Install SafeCache plugin, if you want to prevent this leak.

Shaping the Future

I just finished reading "Inside Larry and Sergey's Brain" after keeping it on my desk for almost 6 weeks. I should admit that I am totally impressed by the way all the information is structured.

I have been following news about Google for the last 3-4 years but I noticed that I wasn't aware of  the details behind the scene. This book covers their passion about data mining, their entrepreneurial skills and their goal to create a better world.

Larry and Sergey's holdings in Google

Today's news on Wall Street Journal:

Under the trading plan, the co-founders would reduce their combined holdings in Google from about 57.7 million common shares, or approximately 18% of outstanding capital stock, to 47.7 million shares, or about 15% of the company, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange filing.

Under the stock trading plan, adopted on Nov. 30, 2009, the two would also reduce their combined voting shares from 59% to about 48%, the filing said.

Maybe it's just my ignorance but I have never seen another company this big where the founders still have more than 50% of the voting shares. Sergey and Larry have so much power in their hands and there is no reason for them to think small. They probably have a business plan for 100 years to create a better world. I believe that in 100 years, the world will complete its transformation and it will become functioning as huge company where Google will be the owner providing latest technologies to the world for free.

Did you know?

• In 2008, Sergey made a $5,000,000 investment in a Virginia company called Space Adventures.
• Google has its own renewable energy R&D group, complete with energy experts and engineers to work on the solar thermal power, wind power and geothermal energy.

My favorite quote

My parents thought me that many of the great scientists throughout time succeeded because they ignored conventional wisdom and followed their own instincts. I now realize that entrepreneurship is no different. The people who break the current orthodoxy make others uncomfortable. And they are also the ones who change the world.