[fuzzywalrus]

Since this is tied to an account, it means data that never dies. While currently unlikely, imagine being vetted for a job by the websites you visit. Do you want an employer to be able to purchase your online history? There's more to hide the the usual things like pornography or political sites. Imagine you've visited several competitor employers, including past job listings. One could easily deduce you likely applied and failed if the job listings no longer exist and you're applying for this new job. Perhaps this makes for a lower offer on the new employers behalf.

I could invent many hypotheticals in this vain but privacy is something worth protecting.

[manigandham]

Makes sense. Isn't this more of an issue of discrimination and what data a company can have access to?

Are employers getting access to search data today? I'm not sure that's happening. Most 3rd party tracking isn't that accurate in coming up with interests/segments for the user in the first place and 1st party data is well protected in that it's what gives the holder value.

I think privacy is important, but there a lot of levels here and browsing history (while valuable) for advertising is not as big of an issue as other wholesale data collection that we see out there.

[thephyber]

> Are employers getting access to search data today?

The more it's used, the cheaper it becomes to collect and sell. The issue is never about how it is used today; always about how it can be used in the future.

You can always find a way to work for yourself and avoid passing an employer background check. I'm more worried about political parties and private eyes -- blackmail, extortion, ugly divorce proceedings, etc. This can have a chilling effect on free speech and curiosity.

The Jacob Applebaum talk explaining linkability.[1]

Anyone who has access to any website where you logged into an account you publicly admit to owning can link your public identity to any private/anonymous persona, given another marketing data source. Verizon "owns the data", but not really. They are the original owner of the data, but eventually Expirion (target of the recent T-Mobile-Experion data theft) and the other credit reporting agencies will have your X-UIDH. Facebook, Twitter, and Google will know as soon as you log in once. They will be able to identify all of your accounts, perhaps even if you use a VPN.

As with any other high tech tracking, the average end-user is either unaware of the zombie cookie or unaware of the full capabilities of the linkability of it.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHoJ9pQ0cn8