You are here

[FIXED] New ClearSpring Tracker on Forum pages?

9 posts / 0 new
Last post
José Pedro Arvela
Offline
Last seen: 5 years 2 months ago
Joined: 2007-07-10 07:29
[FIXED] New ClearSpring Tracker on Forum pages?

EDIT: It seems it was the social bookmarks widget used that added tracking without notice. John explains better further below on the comments and his article is here.

My Flashblock has found a new... code snippet on some of this site's pages. It shows a swf file from bin.clearsring.com on the site's header.

Here is a screenie:

[image]

I am seeing this on most pages except the forum indexes and the make a thread/comment page.

I also cleared my browser's cache to make sure it was not some messup. So, is this really a new tracker on PortableApps.com or is my browser loaded with spyware?

Simeon
Simeon's picture
Offline
Last seen: 9 years 5 months ago
DeveloperTranslator
Joined: 2006-09-25 15:15
weired

I just checked some pages source code and I didnt find anything from clearspring.
Maybe its the bookmark feature thats causing it?

"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate

Patrick Patience
Offline
Last seen: 4 years 3 months ago
DeveloperModerator
Joined: 2007-02-20 19:26
Hmm

I can tell you I just installed Flashblock and got the same thing.

John T. Haller
John T. Haller's picture
Online
Last seen: 33 min 11 sec ago
AdminDeveloperModeratorTranslator
Joined: 2005-11-28 22:21
AddThis Privacy Issue. Fixed.

This began today. ClearSpring acquired AddThis on September 30th. Apparently today they began slipping in cookie-busting flash tracking objects to all pages that use their widget. So, we've ditched AddThis from our site and recommend that anyone else using AddThis do the same.

Can I use your image for a story on this?

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

John T. Haller
John T. Haller's picture
Online
Last seen: 33 min 11 sec ago
AdminDeveloperModeratorTranslator
Joined: 2005-11-28 22:21
Story Up

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

José Pedro Arvela
Offline
Last seen: 5 years 2 months ago
Joined: 2007-07-10 07:29
Nice!

Ok, I hope I have helped on someway and you can use the image if you want (although you already have another image Blum ).

EDIT: Going to provide this info on a Portuguese blog too so more people know this.

EDIT2: It is here in Portuguese. Google Translation here.

Blue is everything.

Bart.S
Offline
Last seen: 7 months 2 weeks ago
Developer
Joined: 2008-07-23 07:56
Still privacy issues?

I'm just curious, because sourceforge.net is using AddThis. And thus PortableApps.com users still come across the AddThis widget (if they download an app).

digitxp
digitxp's picture
Offline
Last seen: 12 years 6 months ago
Joined: 2007-11-03 18:33
Ghostery

According to Ghostery, AddToAny counts as a "bug" too. False positive or real threat? (More at 11 :P)

Insert original signature here with Greasemonkey Script.

NathanJ79
NathanJ79's picture
Offline
Last seen: 4 years 1 month ago
Joined: 2007-07-31 15:07
Hate those things

I hate those little social networking popups. I block 'em with Adblock, including the one here, because they have a tendency to pop up if the pointer gets anywhere near 'em, and they don't like to go away, either. As if everyone wants to run and blog about or tweet about anything here. (I follow both @PortableApps and @JohnHaller -- or is it @JohnTHaller -- on Twitter anyway, so I see the important updates if I'm there and they occur.) And then once they get big, they sell out to spammers and whatnot? No thanks across the board.

Log in or register to post comments