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| Help / Frequently Asked Questions | ||||
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 How do I install TrackMeNot?
How do I upgrade to the current version of TrackMeNot?
How do I remove TrackMeNot?
Can I control the rate at which TMN sends queries?Yes. Go to 'Tools->TrackMeNot->Options' and select an average frequency.Can I choose the search engines that TMN queries?Yes. Go to 'Tools->TrackMeNot->Search-Engines' and select one or more search-engines to query.Can I control the search terms that TMN uses?The current version of TMN begins only with a small seed list (taken from lists of most-frequent search terms published by the search companies). Using these terms as 'seeds', each TMN client dynamically 'evolves' its query list by parsing likely search terms from the results of each query and swapping these back into its 'Current-Query' list. To view the current query list, click 'Tools->Options->Current Queries'.Isn't it easy for search companies (or third parties) to filter out TMN queries?The answer here is not straightforward; even with dynamically evolving query sets, there are data-mining and machine-learning techniques which may well be able to filter some TMN queries based on data patterns obtained from actual users. However, with the combination of randomized scheduling and query lengths, inclusion of popular search terms, and dynamic query sets, we believe the difficulty for 3rd parties wishing to aggregate such data into accurate or identifying profiles is significantly increased.Can TMN effectively hide my identity?To the extent that a third-party tries to identify you through searches alone, TMN can potentially make this a lot more difficult. Much depends on the search query terms included in future versions of TMN. If third-parties are using other means to identify you, e.g. through IP addresses and information from your ISP, TMN will be of little use.Can TMN prevent mining and profiling of my searches?This is a potentially promising application of TMN, particularly with version 0.4.x's use of dynamically evolving query terms.Isn't it a good thing that search companies keep track of my search history?In a perfect world, where search companies and other third parties could be trusted, such histories would serve all of us well and promise greater functionality to both the companies and individual searchers. As long as search companies and other information collectors unilaterally develop and pursue policies that don't take seriously the interests of individuals, society, and standing political and social values, individuals will have to make a choice between convenience and privacy.Why is TMN so concerned with keeping control in the hands of individual users; as opposed to other strategies which use 3rd party servers/proxies?The larger intention of TMN is to challenge the current practice of search companies, and other third-parties, of unilaterally setting policies on the collection and use of personal information. We think users should have a say; we think search companies should listen. To level the playing field, we have sought to create a mechanism that places some degree of control back in the hands of users and, at every point in the design where this has been feasible, we have sought to do so.Won't software like this make it harder for the government to catch real criminals (or terrorists) who might be using the web for nefarious purposes?We are unaware of any instances in which the analysis of search queries has helped law enforcement or security agencies deter or prosecute criminals or terrorists. Constitutional principles, however, place limits on what the government can and cannot do in such investigations. A targeted search on a particular individual's online activities (once probable cause has been demonstrated) is unlikely to be affected. TMN may, however, make unconstitutional 'fishing expeditions' more difficult, which is consistent with the values of a free society.Will widespread deployment of TMN eventually 'clog' the search engines it queries?TMN no doubt places some additional load on search engines (though TMN requests are tiny compared with other types of web-traffic -- e.g. images, animations, music, video, etc.). How much and how serious the impact will depend on the number of users and their use patterns. Our intention (and expectation) with TMN is that its effect on search engines be minimal. Further, universal deployment of TMN is not a goal of the project. Rather, we hope to offer a level of protection to individuals who may feel threatened by the practices of search engines, and perhaps even to afford such users a small voice in the emerging debate on such practices.Does TMN ever simulate click-throughs on links that come up from "fake" searches. If not, why not? Further, couldn't a search engine just look at any searches for which a result is clicked on and know that these are the 'real' searches?We are not yet releasing an implementation of TMN with click-through while we consider the potential impact on existing business models. Although search companies might be able to infer that clicked results are "real," it is not clear they can infer that unclicked ones are not (at least, not merely on those grounds.)What kind of guarantees can TMN make regarding its effectiveness at protecting my privacy?We can make no guarantees, however, we believe that search companies may need to go to considerable trouble to separate user-generated from TMN-generated searches. Further, any such filtering efforts are likely to contain some number of 'false-positives'.If one of the search engines were to come up with a new technical mechanism that could defeat TMN, how would you even know?There have been changes to which we have been able to respond, but there may be current or future mechanisms of which we are unaware and hence not able to respond to.How random is TMN's random timing mechanism. Isn't it likely that a search engine (using the massive amount of user data they've already collected) could distinguish 'any' random mechanism from real user search behavior?With sufficient time and resources, search companies could likely detect a majority of TMN searches with some certainty. We are continuously improving TMNs timing mechanism to mimic, more closely, real usage patterns. New releases of TMN (> v.050) contain a 'burst' mechanism which schedules TMN queries only when users are actually searching, thus avoiding 'patterns' in TMN's randomness.How is this different than a (Distributed) Denial of Service attack or spamware?In providing a way for individual users to assert their privacy rights in web-search, we believe TMN is a legitimate use of network and computing resources. Although we understand that critics may use such rhetoric to cast doubt on our efforts and intentions, we are confident that by all common understandings, TMN is neither DOSware nor spamware. Here are definitions from Wikipedia."a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users. Typically the targets are high-profile web servers, and the attack attempts to make the hosted web pages unavailable on the Internet." (Wikipedia, March 29 2007) "Spamming is the abuse of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages, which are generally undesired." (Wikipedia, March 29 2007) "Spamdexing is any of various methods to manipulate the relevancy or prominence of resources indexed by a search engine, usually in a manner inconsistent with the purpose of the indexing system." (Wikipedia, March 29 2007) How have the search engine companies responded to this project?They haven't.I read Bruce Schnier's review that said TrackMeNot doesn't work; is he right?No. First, his comments targetted the first alpha version of TMN which is significantly different from the current version. Second, he misconstrues the goal of TMN.I would love to use TrackMeNot; why doesn't it work with browsers other than Firefox?Our resources are limited but we would be happy to collaborate with others who would like to develop TMN for other browsers.I would love to use TrackMeNot; why doesn't it work for languages besides English?Again a problem of limited resources. We would be happy to collaborate with anyone wishing to extend TMN to their language!There are several projects that claim to protect privacy in web search (e.g., Tor, Anonymizer, etc.) Which is most effective? Should I use TMN instead of these others?The use of TMN does not preclude the use of any of these other technologies and the highest degree of protection will likely be obtained with some combination of approaches; i.e., Tor, TMN and manual cookie-management.Can you help me understand the new TMN features in version 'X'?
Can you help me understand all the different TMN Options?
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