Ad blockers & privacy browser extensions

[bmac89]

Hi,

I have been using Ublock extension on Opera to block annoying ads and it has done a good job. I recently heard about the ghostery extension which blocks both the ads and the third party tracking websites.

So I installed the Ghostery extension on Opera yesterday afternoon and when I logged into my hotmail email the very next morning there was 4 emails in the junk folder from behave media news.

The first email was welcome to the mailing list, then the other 3 all had the subject:"Earn Revenue From Your Website By Placing Behave Media Ads" but supposedly sent from different people within the organisation.

Obviously I didn't open them but I find it unusual that I start receiving this junk mail almost immediately after installing this extension.

Please share any thoughts and experiences regarding this?

Also can these extension be trusted for security and privacy. Even if the developers themselves are trustworthy do these extensions open up security vulnerabilities?

Thanks

 

[bmac89]

I just found a couple of articled which shine a bit of light on the topic...

"It's a solid privacy tool, but Mashable reports that you should stay away from its opt-in 'GhostRank' feature, which sells data on the ads you block to the ad companies themselves....... Ghostery is owned by Evidon, a company that collects and provides data to advertising companies."

Here are the articles:

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/516156/a-popular-ad-blocker-also-helps-the-ad-industry/

http://lifehacker.com/ad-blocking-extension-ghostery-actually-sells-data-to-a-514417864

This makes me a bit suspicious of this company and the extension. I do not have this feature enabled but I still suspect the junk email I am receiving may be a result of using this extension.

Maybe I am better off not using the extension or finding another method to reduce the data advertising companies collecting from me.