Xref: utzoo comp.org.eff.talk:2457 alt.privacy:704 alt.censorship:2403 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ucla-cs!lanai.cs.ucla.edu!gast From: gast@lanai.cs.ucla.edu (David Gast) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,alt.privacy,alt.censorship Subject: Re: Prodigy charged with invading users' privacy Message-ID: <1991May28.000145.7666@cs.ucla.edu> Date: 28 May 91 00:01:45 GMT References: <1991May22.154239.3777@craycos.com> Sender: usenet@cs.ucla.edu (Mr. News Himself) Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department Lines: 30 Nntp-Posting-Host: lanai.cs.ucla.edu I have never used Prodigy so I can't comment from personal experience, but a couple points seem clear. Prodigy is probably not taking information off one's hard disk. But that does not mean that they could not if they wanted to. I understand that they can download updates to their software to your disk. Clearly, if they can write, they can read. Further, I would be very concerned about some program writing new files to my disk without my knowledge. What if I don't want the new larger program? What if I am running another program (TSR or otherwise) that violates some rule that Prodigy expects my computer to obey and the update causes serious problems? Why does Prodigy take so much more space than it needs? Presumably so that it can guarantee that the disk won't fill up, but I think this practice is unreasonable. Suppose I need that space. Can you imagine if every spreadsheet program decided to reserve 20 meg of space because you might use that much on spread sheet applications and every word processor decided to reserve 40 meg of space because ... You get the idea. It's unreasonable. Further, it could communicate information about your hard disk without sending much data. One byte (8 bits) can send back the answer to 8 boolean questions. It could send your PATH and a few other variables without your knowledge. Prodigy does, in fact, get personal information about you. It decides what ads to send based on what you have done. And it is my understanding, possibly false, that it sells info about the users of Prodigy to others. David