ABSTRACT
In April 2008, I had a security issue with one of my web projects, and while doing research on how to improve security, I found the official TrackMeNot website. The Firefox extension, developed by New York University researchers Daniel C. Howe and Helen Nissenbaum, is designed to create search engine obfuscation, meaning that the extension creates noise. The developers state on their website:
TrackMeNot is a lightweight browser extension that helps protect web searchers from surveillance and data-profiling by search engines. It does so not by means of concealment or encryption (i.e. covering one's tracks), but instead, paradoxically, by the opposite strategy: noise and obfuscation. With TrackMeNot, actual web searches, lost in a cloud of false leads, are essentially hidden in plain view. User-installed TrackMeNot works with the Firefox Browser and popular search engines (AOL, Yahoo!, Google, and MSN) and requires no 3rd-party servers or services. 1
