Another type of Phorm...?

[Richard Clayton]

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In article <4fafd98c13ukcrypto@vigay.com>, Paul Vigay
<ukcrypto@vigay.com> writes

>I've just read in this weeks "Computing" that Thomas Cook is using tracking
>software to monitor the behaviour of visitors to its website. It doesn't go
>into technicalities but says the software comes from a company called "Site
>Intelligence".
>
>Does anyone know anything more about this?

presumably    http://www.site-intelligence.co.uk/

looks like it's a fancy form of web log analysis; read their extensive
blurbs to see if you can penetrate the mystery :) of their prose... they
ask for example "What if you could generate more revenue simply by
forecasting smarter?"  They apparently also allow you to "evaluate every
touch point", which sounds like a smarter way to date (there's a
grinning lady in the advert, so it must work!)

Anyway, this is all covered in Thomas Cook's Privacy Policy:

   "We may also collect information about your visit to our website,
   based on your browsing (click stream) activities. This information
   may include the pages you browse and products and services viewed or
   booked for example. This helps us to better manage and develop our
   offers and to provide you with better products and services tailored
   to your individual interests and needs. We may use this information
   to measure the entry and exit points of visitors to the Site and
   respective numbers of visitors to various pages and sections of the
   Site and details of searches performed. We may also use this
   information to measure the usage of advertising banners, other click
   throughs from the Site. We may disclose information of this nature in
   aggregate form to third parties, personal information on individual
   visitors will not be passed on to any third party."

Thomas Cook is also sharing information about your visits with third
parties, which they also admit to...

   "We use third-party application service providers to perform some
   tracking functions. These companies may use cookie-based information
   (not including your name, address email address or telephone number)
   about your visits to this and other web sites in order to measure
   advertising effectiveness."

The third party is Atlas (part of aQuantive), who offer an opt-out on
their cookie processing (see www.networkadvertising.com) if this is a
matter of concern to you.

They also share data with mytravel.com (who are part of the Thomas Cook
group), viz: the databases there promptly learn you've been to the main
website, which may affect their attitude towards you; hard to tell.

- -- 
richard                                              Richard Clayton

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.         Benjamin Franklin

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