Could you be more condescending?

From: Alex Tillman <alex_at_webtillman.com>
Date: Tue 30 Apr 2002 12:40:50 -0600

Sean Dillon <sean_at_telegraph.co.uk> wrote:

_You said "one of those insidious stealth ones I believe" when
referring to a tracking mechanism. This is typical of the
complete lack of understanding from even informed marketers
like yourself of what this technology allows us. Insidious
would infer an aspect of harm being done, I see no harm in
publisher knowing what their user base is, and 'stealth',
well, it's simply an image call or cookie placement, do
you really want to have to vet each image call or
cookie placement whenever you visit a site?._

Wow- you are so far off base, I don_t even know where
to begin. I guess I_ll start with the inaccuracies,
then work my way up to the condescending stuff.

First off, I did not refer to _tracking mechanisms_,
per se, as insidious. I was speaking of a stealth
program, installed by a third party without the user_s
knowledge or consent that reports web activity
information back to a third party, NOT, as you wrongly
state, a publisher tracking traffic patterns within
their site (which I do use and _understand_ on the
sites I manage). The third party tracking does _infer
an aspect of harm being done_ since it violates the
user's privacy. Your misunderstanding here only clouds
up the issue, so I will restate my request to avoid
any further confusion:

Does anyone know of a third party system that, in any
way, uses the _cleardot.gif_ to track visiting
information and report it without the user_s
knowledge? Or, if this is a mythical urban legand type
thing, does anyone know why I_d be getting error
request for cleardot.gifs (and no other errors) on
pages where they don_t exist?

Secondly, and more importantly, I think you need to
adjust your attitude when posting in a forum such as
this. You accused me of having a _complete lack of
understanding_ and _propogating a rumour which is
founded on half-truths and misunderstandings_. Pretty
tough talk for someone who merely asked a legitimate
question in a place designed for DISCUSSION!

Here is why I asked such a _gullible_ question.

1. I have seen privacy policies that mention that they
do not participate in the cleardot marketing program
when I was researching updating our privacy policy
(maybe they got taken in by a hoax as well, but how
would I know that without asking) and

2. the only errors we get on our entire site are
request for cleardot.gif images on pages where they
don_t exist (which seems like a strange occurrence to
me- could be bad coding, but I would expect to see
other errors too with bad HTML).

So, I asked a very straightforward question, admitting
right upfront that it may be an urban legend type
thing, and waited to see if anyone knew anything about
it. Then you trash me for having the audacity to ask
the question in the first place.

So how about this, if you can_t manage to answer a
legitimate question without being rude and
condescending to the person who asked it, maybe you
should let someone else field it, and maybe a forum
isn_t a place you should be spending your time. People
learn by asking questions, and this forum is a perfect
example of that. So check your attitude at the door
and drop the _holier than thou_ front, especially when
you misinterpret the question.



Received on Tue Apr 30 2002 - 13:40:50 CDT