posted on August 8, 2005 08:47:59 AM
Hi, I have seen the ad for the New eBay Toolbar on their site. Does anyone have it? Do you like it? What is the downside of it...I just hate to download something and then find out it does not accomplish anything...So any words of wisdom would be greatly Appreciated!...Thanks, WCP
posted on August 8, 2005 09:04:08 AM
"Last issue I explained why the Google toolbar should not be considered spyware. This week I'm going to tell you about a toolbar that is spyware. The following is a quote from Patrick Kolla, the developer of Spybot S&D.
It's verified now that the eBay toolbar is violating eBay's own Privacy Policy. According to eBays Privacy Policy, Appendix 2, stuff like IPs etc. is given to Advertisers only in a non-personal manner, to External Service Providers only with given permission (which is not asked for in the toolbar license agreement) or upon direct contact (which the user doesn't know anything about).
[During testing] The toolbar contacts both MediaPlex (adfarm.mediaplex.com) and DoubleClick (ad.doubleclick.net), using at least the first as a page relocator. That means this relocator page at MediaPlex receives the whole URL that the toolbar calls. It receives all search terms, and in the POST (formular) data of the HTML header it will also receive any formular data you enter or that is transmitted automatically.
The mediaplex relocator also contains some long number that could be a GUID [Editor: A GUID is a Globally Unique Identifier].
The least thing those two advertisers could monitor is the keywords you search for on ebay; MediaPlex is using their cookie for the toolbar, so they can track you very easy.
The worst thing that is - theoretically, not proven - possible would be much more access to your ebay account, including information about everything you bought or sold, for example.
