iSpies: The Secrets of SnazzySpace

After reading an article called The iSpies written by Julia Angwin, I decided to research further into the topic, so I read another article called Snazzyspace.com: the Kids’ Site With the Most Tracking Files written by Jennifer Valentino-DeVries. What a parent may believe to be a safe site for their kid or teen is actually invaded by monsters ready to lash out at their children instead. There was a test computer that went on this site, and it picked up 248 tracking tools there. This site picked up more tracking tools than the runner up site, Playlist.com, which had 49 less tracking tools. SnazzySpace was found to have 3 flash cookies, 195 cookies, and 46 beacons embedded in it. Cookies are little stored inside a user’s computer which allows companies to track the user across various sites, flash cookies use Adobe’s Flash program in order to record information from another computer, and beacons are invisible pieces of software which are capable of tracking users and gathering information on what they are doing. This is a huge invasion of privacy and peace of mind. Just glancing at SnazzySpace will show you flashing and glowing colors decorating images…as well as tons of ads all over the site as well. A representative of SnazzySpace explained that the site works with multiple ad networks which could place several tracking tools on the site. He also commented that, “While there may be a lot of cookies I don’t think ALL of them are the ‘tracking’ type.” The digital marketing firm Epic Media Group Inc was found to be the company with the most cookies and beacons on SnazzySpace. Epic Media Group Inc uses beacons to ensure that they’re ads appear on the appropriate websites, for payment-tracking reasons, says the president of Epic’s online intelligence division E. J. Hilbert. He claims that Epic does not track users from site to site, but instead uses cookies to which sites and ads draw the most attention. 18 cookies were found to be from Google’s ad services AdSense and DoubleClick, but some were also from Google’s site analytic service and for YouTube videos. A Google representative claimed he could not comment SnazzySpace specifically, but that advertisers and publishers control the cookies they use for analytics and ads. He said that users can just set their browser to block cookies. Domain records indicates that SnazzySpace.com was registered in Queensland, Australia by Joshua Scutts in 2006. Mr. Scutts registered other sites as well, such as iwantlayouts.com. On those registered sites a telephone number had been listed belonging to Technical Simplicity Pty Ltd, which is an Australian company that offers web and logo design. Joshua Scutts was listed as the founder on a hidden page on their website. A phone call made to Technical Simplicity Pty Ltd was not returned. The representative of SnazzySpace.com described the site as a “hobby” and would not disclose the site’s revenue. During February on Facebook, a user identifying himself as Joshu Scutts expressed his dwindling interest in personalizing social networking services, stating; “People just spam their facebook status which in turn updates their twitter. No one uses it for backgrounds, or anything. :(“