December 09, 2011
Studies show that online consumers are concerned about security and privacy. That means web retailers must ensure they are taking all the steps necessary to ensure a safe and transparent shopping experience.
Most individuals don't understand how to configure advertising "opt-out" tools, according to a new study, which means the debate over how best to give users control over their privacy rages on.
Microsoft this week filed two lawsuits against alleged perpetrators of a technologically advanced form of click fraud called "click laundering."
An estimated 1.3 million malicious advertisements, or malvertisements, are served to websites each day, according to data gathered by web security firm Dasient. Malvertisements are disguised as legitimate ads and delivered via ad networks to well-known websites. Users can be hit simply by visiting the target website, as 59 percent of malvertisements aim to spread via drive-by download. About 41 percent of malvertisements propagate rogue anti-virus programs, according to Dasient. Additionally, users are twice as likely of getting infected by a malvertisement during the weekend, and the average lifespan of one is 7.3 days. — AM
Several sites running an old, vulnerable version of the OpenX advertisement server were compromised this week, leading to a tenfold increase in malicious PDF traffic.
Federal lawmakers this week released a controversial draft bill intended to protect the privacy of personal information that appears online.
The advertisements seem to be delivered by multiple third-party ad networks including Google's DoubleClick.
Little-known Adobe Flash cookies are being used by some websites to get around users' attempts to avoid being tracked by advertising networks, according to research from University of California, Berkeley.
