Panorama reports that Web of Trust logs collected information such as time and date, location, web address and user ID. The information are sold to third-parties who may sell the data again to interested companies.
WOT notes on its website that it hands over data to third-parties but only in anonymized form. The team of reporters managed to identify several user accounts however which suggests that the anonymization does not work as intended.
- I am not surprised. According to my info (no, I don't have a weblink. I saw this story in a TV program) once I go online and visit a webpage with ads, some personal data is collected and are sold to the highest bidder. And that bidding & selling seems to be occurring in REAL TIME. So, the highest bidder is allowed to send me one or more ads. And then there won't be time to anonymize the data. surprise, surprise.