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Tynt Insight: The worst thing in the entire world

<@Crash> China's Wang wins third gold medal at short track
<@Crash> Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/olympics/2010/?eref=sinav#ixzz0ghvk2qyP
<@Crash> WTF?
<@Crash> I didn't even copypasta that part!
<@Crash> I was all hooray for China's Wang, but that came out too
<@Crash> That shit's just fucking rude now.

More and more companies are integrating software called Tynt Insight (formerly Tynt Tracer, a name I’m sure was changed because of the creepy connotations) with their websites. It’s free, and it’s pretty easy to install: all you have to do is include one extra JavaScript file on each of your web pages and it’ll automatically do its thing.

So what is its thing, exactly?

The ostensible purpose is copy/paste tracking. In short, it tracks what text and images users are copying from your web site. Tynt’s website talks again and again and again and again and again about how what is copied and how often it’s copied can provide valuable information to the webmaster. It’s a magic technology that produces WOW ACTUAL NUMBERS, so I can see the attraction, but I don’t really see the value in knowing what headlines people are copying to make penis jokes about.

Really, what use is there in being able to say, “2,500 people have copied text from my blog“? It’s a completely meaningless number. It means even less than visitor numbers or Alexa rankings, which, while easy to obsess over, do actually have marginal utility.

The reports of what’s being copied from your web pages could potentially be useful, I suppose. If you need JavaScript to tell you that people are copying the summaries from your articles to show others, more power to you. The rest of us will just have to figure that out on our own.

I’m pretty much outside of the target adopter group for Tynt Insight, though, and this clearly appeals to others a lot more than it does me.

<@CHz> The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is considering action against a producer of "The Hurt Locker" who sent multiple e-mails urging academy members to vote for his movie in the Oscar best-picture race and "not a $500 million film"
<@CHz> Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/entertainment/academy-ponders-action-against-locker-producer-who-sent-e-mails-soliciting-oscar-votes-85688222.html#ixzz0gulgCN6w
<@CHz> f'in copyjacked

I don’t really mind the idea of a website knowing what I’m copying from it. It’s definitely creepy, and as I explained above I don’t know why someone would care, but this doesn’t keep me awake at night. Google Analytics is I think much more invasive, and I let that do whatever it wants to, so yeah, I’m pretty much okay with this in theory.

But I was curious about what information they track, so I checked out their privacy policy. Here’s the relevant part, in its entirety:

When you use TYNT Products, we will collect the following information:

  1. The Internet domain and IP address from which you access the TYNT Products;
  2. The type of browser and operating system used to access the TYNT Products;
  3. Screen resolution of your monitor;
  4. The date and time you access the TYNT Products;
  5. The page you are visiting with the TYNT Products;
  6. If you linked to a TYNT web site from another referring web site, the address of that web site.

By using the TYNT Products, you are consenting to have your personal data transferred to and processed both within and without the United States of America

By using the TYNT website, you agree to the preceding uses of your information in this way by TYNT.

Browser, OS, and screen resolution are pretty much par for the course as far as these things are concerned. I don’t see at all why Tynt needs to know these things, but that just ties back into my opinion that the whole thing is useless. If you’re the kind of person whom Tynt Insight excites, then you’ll probably find the demographic info useful too.

Do note that the policy doesn’t say they won’t use your IP address to track what you specifically are doing, doesn’t say they’ll delete your identifying information at any point in time, and doesn’t say they won’t give away or sell your information. And I’m sure there’s quite a bit more that it doesn’t say. They know which sites you copy text from, and therefore which sites you visit, and they can do whatever they want with it, whenever they want.

If this bothers you in any way, well that’s your toughie, because Tynt offers no way to opt out. According to their technical FAQ, they’re currently “investing considerable effort into developing a feature that will allow users to block Tynt software across all the sites that are using it.” I’m glad they felt this was an important enough issue to spend time on, but I’m dismayed that this was apparently not important enough to address before they let their tracer loose. Nothing builds a rapport with your users like saying, “we’re going to track you, and we’re working on a way for you to opt out, but until then we’re just going to track you.”

Thankfully, since Tynt Insight is just one JavaScript file, it’s blockable with any sort of ad blocking browser add-on, like NoScript and Adblock Plus for Firefox. The request URL is something like http://tcr.tynt.com/javascripts/Tracer.js?user=userid&s=somenumber, with userid and somenumber filled in with different values depending on the site. I’d recommend casting tynt.com and all of its subdomains into a black hole and forgetting about it.

<@CHz> http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/702911/Security-Appears-Unannounced-At-Infinity-Ward-Studio-Heads-Missing-Staff-Freaked-Out-.html what the eff
<+Tails> "Infinity Ward studio heads Vince Zampella and Jason West reportedly met with Activision this morning and have not been seen by Infinity Ward staff members since.
<+Tails> Read more: http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/702911/Security-Appears-Unannounced-At-Infinity-Ward-Studio-Heads-Missing-Staff-Freaked-Out-.html#ixzz0h1AkEOSa
<+Tails> lol the copied link

I’ve intentionally avoided talking about Tynt Insight’s second, and far more visible feature, but the IRC logs I’ve been using as section separators illustrate it. Whenever you copy text from a page running Tynt Insight, it automatically adds an attribution link back to the webpage at the end of what you’re copying. It does this silently, so you only know it’s happened after you paste the text somewhere else.

Let me rephrase this. Tynt Insight modifies a system behavior without telling you or asking for your permission.

I’m not even going to explain their reasoning behind doing this, because this is indefensible. There is no planet in the universe on which this is acceptable behavior.

And, just like the data tracking, they don’t yet offer a way to disable this. From the technical FAQ again:

Q. I don’t want Tynt Insight to add a link when I copy and paste. What can I do?

A. We’re currently working on providing users an option to opt out of Tynt Insight. If you’d like to disable Tynt Insight immediately, you can use an ad or script blocking tool to disable Tynt Insight.

No.

No no no no no.

Here, FAQ guy, sit down. I want to talk to you for a second.

First, you are fundamentally changing the behavior of my web browser without my permission. This is not something you do and then make users opt out of. This is something you make opt-in. The onus is not on me to tell you not to pollute my clipboard; it is on you to not do it without asking me.

Second, why is this not a feature already? Why was this not a feature before you launched? Either no one in the company thought about this beforehand, which is embarrassing, or no one cared, which is reprehensible.

Tynt Insight is the worst thing in the entire world. Leave my browser alone.

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  1. […] var = Tynt = Tynt ||[] did not make sense at first but after some googling I came across this: Textual Pornography : Tynt Insight: The worst thing in the entire world Tynt Insight (Formerly, Tynt Tracker) tynt – who's interested When you use TYNT Products, we […]

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