I thought I'd go ahead and try the personal productivity manager, RescueTime, mentioned in a previous post. I thought this would be a good way for me to passively monitor my web browsing and computer usage. But I took a look at the privacy policy and got scared off.
What concerns me about RescueTime is that they are selling your information. Not your individual information, but the collective information collected from all of its users about their online behavior. According to their privacy policy: "We may sell, rent, or share information about user behavior in the aggregate only. For example, we could share information like, "which day of the week do people spend the most time in front of their computer?""
For starters, I thought the software was only a tool FOR ME. I didn't think it would collect my browsing information, let alone contribute it to a database and sell it. It's not the creation of a database of internet user behavior that I have a problem with. It's the fact that this information is monetized and used for a for-profit company. I'd be happy to participate in research where information about my computer use was recorded and aggregated into a database and analyzed. No problem. But selling the results from this research seems unethical. Why should only those who can pay know about people's computer habits?
Some might argue that this research is costly, requiring time, energy and money. But couldn't an open-source/crowd-source project with the same aim be just as effective? Why does this research have to result in a for-profit business model? Is there some free-ware out there that allows you to monitor your computer usage and keep the records for yourself? I wanna know!
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