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Version 5 of web code may spell end of privacy

HTML 5 Could Give Marketers & Advertisers Access To More Details Of Users’ Online Activities

           Worries over internet privacy have spurred lawsuits, conspiracy theories and consumer anxiety as marketers and others invent new ways to track computer users on the web. But the alarmists have not seen anything yet.  

           In the next few years, a powerful new suite of capabilities will become available to web developers that could give marketers and advertisers access to many more details about computer users’ online activities. Nearly everyone who uses the internet will face the privacy risks that come with those capabilities, which are an integral part of the web language that will soon power the internet: HTML 5.  

           The new web code, the fifth version of Hypertext Markup Language used to create web pages, is already in limited use, and it promises to usher in a new era of internet browsing within the next few years. It will make it easier for users to view multimedia content without downloading extra software; check email offline; or find a favorite restaurant or shop on a smartphone.  

           Most users will clearly welcome the additional features that come with the new web language. “It’s going to change everything about the internet and the way we use it today,” said James Cox, 27, a freelance consultant and software developer at Smokeclouds, a New York City start-up company. “It’s not just HTML 5. It’s the new web.”  

           But others, while also enthusiastic about the changes, are more cautious.  

           Most web users are familiar with so-called cookies, which make it possible, for example, to log on to websites without having to retype user names and passwords, or to keep track of items placed in virtual shopping carts before they are bought.  

           The new language and its additional features present more tracking opportunities because the technology uses a process in which large amounts of data can be collected and stored on the user’s hard drive while online. Because of that process, advertisers and others could see weeks or even months of personal data. That could include a user’s location, time zone, photographs, text from blogs, shopping cart contents, emails and a history of the web pages visited.  

           The new web language “gives trackers one more bucket to put tracking information into,” said Hakon Wium Lie, the chief technology officer at Opera, a browser company. Or as Pam Dixon, the executive director of the World Privacy Forum in California, said: “HTML 5 opens Pandora’s box of tracking in the internet.” 

 

NYT NEWS SERVICE