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`Race Is On to 'Fingerprint' Phones, PCs - WSJ
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`http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704679204575646704100959546
`
`WHAT THEY KNOW
`
`
`By Julia Angwin And Jennifer Valentino-DeVries
`
`Updated Nov. 30, 2010 12:01 a.m. ET
`
`IRVINE, Calif.— David Norris wants to collect the digital equivalent of fingerprints from
`every computer, cellphone and TV set-top box in the world.
`
`AUDIO
`
` Listen: Jennifer ValentinoDeVries discusses
`the next generation of online tracking tools.
`
`He's off to a good start. So far, Mr. Norris's
`start-up company, BlueCava Inc., has
`identified 200 million devices. By the end of
`next year, BlueCava says it expects to have
`cataloged one billion of the world's estimated
`10 billion devices.
`
`Advertisers no longer want to just buy ads. They want to buy access to specific people.
`So, Mr. Norris is building a "credit bureau for devices" in which every computer or
`cellphone will have a "reputation" based on its user's online behavior, shopping habits
`and demographics. He plans to sell this information to advertisers willing to pay top
`dollar for granular data about people's interests and activities.
`
`Device fingerprinting is a powerful emerging tool in this trade. It's "the next generation
`of online advertising," Mr. Norris says.
`
`It might seem that one computer is pretty much like any other. Far from it: Each has a
`different clock setting, different fonts, different software and many other
`characteristics that make it unique. Every time a typical computer goes online, it
`broadcasts hundreds of such details as a calling card to other computers it
`communicates with. Tracking companies can use this data to uniquely identify
`computers, cellphones and other devices, and then build profiles of the people who use
`them.
`
`Until recently, fingerprinting was used mainly to prevent illegal copying of computer
`software or to thwart credit-card fraud. BlueCava's own fingerprinting technology
`traces its unlikely roots to an inventor who, in the early 1990s, wanted to protect the
`software he used to program music keyboards for the Australian pop band INXS.
`
`Tracking companies are now embracing fingerprinting partly because it is much
`tougher to block than other common tools used to monitor people online, such as
`browser "cookies," tiny text files on a computer that can be deleted.
`
`As controversy grows over intrusive online tracking, regulators are looking to rein it in.
`This week, the Federal Trade Commission is expected to release a privacy report calling
`for a "do-not-track" tool for Web browsers.
`
`Ad companies are constantly looking for new techniques to heighten their surveillance
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`Race Is On to 'Fingerprint' Phones, PCs - WSJ
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`BlueCava CEO David Norris plans to fingerprint billions of devices. Tracking cookies 'are a joke,' he says. MICHAL
`CZERWONKA FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
`
`MORE FROM DIGITS
`
`'Evercookies' and 'Fingerprinting': Are Anti-
`Fraud Tools Good for Ads?
`How to Prevent Device Fingerprinting
`A New Type of Tracking: Akamai's 'Pixel-
`Free' Technology
`
`of Internet users.
`
`Deep packet inspection, a potentially
`intrusive method for peering closely into the
`digital traffic that moves between people's
`computers and the broader Internet, is being
`tested in the U.S. and Brazil as a future means
`to deliver targeted advertising.
`
`an Internet-infrastructure giant that says it
`Akamai Technologies Inc.,
`-1.52%
`AKAM
`
`delivers 15% to 30% of all Web traffic, is marketing a technique to track people's online
`movements in more detail than traditional tools easily can.
`
`It's tough even for sophisticated Web surfers to tell if their gear is being fingerprinted.
`Even if people modify their machines—adding or deleting fonts, or updating software—
`fingerprinters often can still recognize them. There's not yet a way for people to delete
`fingerprints that have been collected. In short, fingerprinting is largely invisible, tough
`to fend off and semi-permanent.
`
`HOW TO 'FINGERPRINT' A COMPUTER
`
`A typical computer broadcasts hundreds of details about itself when a Web browser
`connects to the Internet. Companies tracking people online can use those details to
`'fingerprint' browsers and follow their users.
`
`Device fingerprinting is legal. U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush (D.,Ill.), proposed legislation in July
`that would require companies that use persistent identifiers, such as device
`fingerprints, to let people opt out of being tracked online.
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`Fingerprinting companies are racing to meet the $23 billion U.S. online-ad industry's
`appetite for detailed consumer behavior. Previously, the companies focused on using
`device fingerprints to prevent software theft or to identify computers making
`fraudulent transactions, in hopes of preventing future attempts.
`
`Mr. Norris's firm, BlueCava, this year spun off from anti-piracy company Uniloc USA
`Inc. to start offering services to advertisers and others. One of the leading e-commerce
`fraud-prevention firms, 41st Parameter Inc., has begun testing its device-fingerprinting
`techniques with several online-ad companies. Another anti-fraud company, iovation
`Inc. of Portland, Ore., says it is exploring the use of device profiles to help websites
`customize their content.
`
`BlueCava says the information it collects about devices can't be traced back to
`individuals and that it will offer people a way to opt out of being tracked.
`
`Still, Mr. Norris says it's tough to figure out how to alert people their devices are being
`fingerprinted. "We don't have all the answers, but we're just going to try to be really
`clear" about how the data is used, he says.
`
`Ric Richardson, BlueCava's secret sauce, in Byron Bay, Australia. MELANIE TJOENG FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
`
`Neither BlueCava nor 41st Parameter explicitly notified the people whose devices have
`been fingerprinted so far. Both companies say the data-gathering is disclosed in the
`privacy policies of the companies they work with. BlueCava says it doesn't collect
`personal information such as people's names. Its privacy policy says it gathers "just
`boring stuff that most people couldn't care less about."
`
`Ori Eisen, founder of 41st Parameter, says using fingerprinting to track devices is "fair
`game" because websites automatically get the data anyway.
`
`Some advertisers are enthusiastic about fingerprinting. Steel House Inc., a Los Angeles-
`based ad company, has been testing 41st Parameter's technology for three months on
`websites of its clients, which include Cooking.com Inc. and Toms Shoes Inc. (Clients
`weren't notified of the test, and fingerprints weren't used to display ads.)
`
`In its examination of 70 million website visits, 41st Parameter found it could generate a
`fingerprint about 89% of the time. By comparison, Steel House was able to use cookies
`for tracking on only about 78% of visits, because some people blocked or deleted
`cookies.
`
`"It's almost like a revolution," says Mark Douglas, founder and CEO of Steel House. "Our
`intent is that it can completely replace the use of cookies."
`
`Steel House offers people a way to opt out of its current cookie-based ads and says it
`would do the same if it adopts fingerprints. "I definitely don't want to be in the sights of
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`MORE FROM THE SERIES
`
`A Web Pioneer Profiles Users by Name
`Web's New Goldmine: Your Secrets
`Personal Details Exposed Via Biggest Sites
`Microsoft Quashed Bid to Boost Web Privacy
`On Cutting Edge, Anonymity in Name Only
`Stalking by Cellphone
`Google Agonizes Over Privacy
`On the Web, Children Face Intensive
`Tracking
`'Scrapers' Dig Deep for Data on Web
`Facebook in Privacy Breach
`Insurers Test Data Profiles to Identify Risky
`Clients
`Shunned Profiling Technology on the Verge
`of Comeback
`The Tracking Ecosystem
`Follow @whattheyknow on Twitter
` Complete Coverage: What They Know
`
`keyboards.
`
`Race Is On to 'Fingerprint' Phones, PCs - WSJ
`the privacy people," Mr. Douglas says.
`
`Computers need to broadcast details about
`their configuration in order to interact
`smoothly with websites and with other
`computers. For example, computers
`announce which specific Web browsers they
`use, along with their screen resolution, to
`help websites display correctly.
`
`There are hundreds of parameters. "We call
`them the 'toys on the table,'" says Mr. Norris
`of BlueCava. "Everyone has the same toys on
`the table. It's how you rearrange them or look
`at them that is the secret sauce" used to
`fingerprint a specific computer.
`
`BlueCava's secret sauce hails from Sydney,
`Australia, in the early 1990s. Back then,
`inventor Ric Richardson was helping
`musicians including the band INXS to use
`new software for playing their electronic
`
`"They'd say what sound they wanted, and I'd do it," says Mr. Richardson, who today
`works out of a van parked near an Australia beach.
`
`Mr. Richardson was frustrated when he tried to sell the music software, because there
`was no way to let people test it before buying. So he designed a "demonstration" version
`of the software that would let people test it, but not copy it.
`
`His idea:
`Configure his
`software to
`work only after
`it was linked to
`a unique
`computer. So, he
`developed a way
`to catalog each
`computer's
`individual
`properties. He
`found many
`subtle
`
`Ori Eisen, founder of 41st Parameter PHILIP MONTGOMERY FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
`
`variations, among even outwardly similar machines.
`
`"It was amazing how different they were," he says. "There are literally hundreds of
`things you can measure."
`
`In 1992, he borrowed $40,000 from his parents, filed a patent application for a "system
`for software registration" and founded a company, Uniloc Corp.
`
`This year, Uniloc started trying to broaden its business away from software-piracy
`prevention. It recruited Mr. Norris, then running a company that provided photos for
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`advertisers, to seek new uses for its technology. "What I saw was this different way of
`looking at things on the Web," Mr. Norris says.
`
`Mr. Norris became CEO and spun off BlueCava to market device fingerprinting both to
`fraud-prevention and online-ad firms. Eventually, he hopes Blue Cava can fingerprint
`everything from automobiles to the electrical grid. In October, Texas billionaire Mark
`Cuban led a group of investors who put $5 million into BlueCava.
`
`BlueCava embeds its technology in websites, downloadable games and cellphone apps.
`One of its first customers was Palo Alto, Calif.-based IMVU Inc., which operates an
`online game where 55 million registered players can build virtual identities and chat in
`3-D. It wanted to combat fraudsters who were setting up multiple accounts to buy
`virtual clothing and trinkets with stolen credit-card numbers. Kevin Dasch, a vice
`president at IMVU, says BlueCava's technology "has led to a significant decline in our
`fraud rates."
`
`Later this year,
`BlueCava plans
`to launch its
`reputation
`exchange,
`which will
`include all the
`fingerprints it
`has collected so
`far.
`
`Ric Richardson uses this van as his office. MELANIE TJOENG FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
`
`Unlike most
`other fraud-
`prevention
`companies, BlueCava plans to merge its fraud data with its advertising data. Rivals say
`they don't mix the two types of data.
`
`Greg Pierson, chief executive of iovation, says the company will never disclose specific
`information about people's Web-browsing behavior, "because it's unnecessary and it's
`dangerous. It's close to spying."
`
`Mr. Norris says collecting that data is "standard practice" in the online-ad business.
`
`Mr. Dasch of IMVU says he doesn't mind fingerprints of IMVU customers being added to
`the exchange, provided that they don't contain personally identifiable information such
`as user names, and that his company can use other exchange data in return.
`
`The idea behind BlueCava's exchange is to let advertisers build profiles of the people
`using the devices it has identified. For instance, BlueCava will know that an IMVU
`fingerprint is from someone who likes virtual-reality games.
`
`Other advertisers could then add information about that user. BlueCava also plans to
`link the profiles of various devices—cellphones, for instance—that also appear to be used
`by the same person.
`
`Blue Cava also is seeking to use a controversial technique of matching online data about
`people with catalogs of offline information about them, such as property records,
`motor-vehicle registrations, income estimates and other details. It works like this: An
`individual logs into a website using a name or e-mail address.
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`The website shares those details with an offline-data company, which uses the email
`address or name to look up its files about the person.
`
`The data company then strips out the user's name and passes BlueCava information
`from offline databases. BlueCava then adds those personal details to its profile of that
`device.
`
`As a result, BlueCava expects to have extremely detailed profiles of devices that could be
`more useful to marketers. In its privacy policy, BlueCava says it plans to hang onto
`device data "for the foreseeable future."
`
`Advertisers are starting to test BlueCava's system. Mobext, the U.S. cellphone-
`advertising unit of the French firm Havas SA, is evaluating BlueCava's technology as a
`way to target users on mobile devices. "It's a better level of tracking," says Rob Griffin,
`senior vice president at Havas Digital.
`
`Phuc Truong, managing director of Mobext, explains that tracking on cellphones is
`difficult because cookies don't always work on them. By comparison, he says, BlueCava's
`technology can work on all phones.
`
`"I think cookies are a joke," Mr. Norris says. "The system is archaic and was invented by
`accident. We've outgrown it, and it's time for the next thing."
`
`Write to Julia Angwin at julia.angwin@wsj.com and Jennifer Valentino-DeVries at
`jennifer.valentino-devries@wsj.com
`
`MORE FROM 'WHAT THEY KNOW'
`
`A Web Pioneer Profiles Users by Name
`Web's New Goldmine: Your Secrets
`Personal Details Exposed Via Biggest Websites
`Microsoft Quashed Bid to Boost Web Privacy
`On Web's Cutting Edge, Anonymity in Name Only
`Stalking by Cellphone
`On the Web, Children Face Intensive Tracking
`Google Agonizes Over Privacy
`'Scrapers' Dig Deep for Data on Web
`Facebook in Privacy Breach
`Insurers Test Data Profiles to Identify Risky Clients
`Shunned Profiling Technology on the Verge of Comeback
`The Tracking Ecosystem
`Follow @whattheyknow on Twitter
` Complete Coverage: What They Know
`
`Copyright ©;2017 Dow Jones &; Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
`
`This copy is for your personal, noncommercial use only. To order presentationready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit
`http://www.djreprints.com.
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