Websites Grabbing User-Form Data Before It's Submitted

Websites are sending information prematurely:

...we discovered NaviStone's code on sites run by Acurian, Quicken Loans, a continuing education center, a clothing store for plus-sized women, and a host of other retailers. Using Javascript, those sites were transmitting information from people as soon as they typed or auto-filled it into an online form. That way, the company would have it even if those people immediately changed their minds and closed the page.

This is important because it goes against what people expect:

In yesterday's report on Acurian Health, University of Washington law professor Ryan Calo told Gizmodo that giving users a "send" or "submit" button, but then sending the entered information regardless of whether the button is pressed or not, clearly violates a user's expectation of what will happen. Calo said it could violate a federal law against unfair and deceptive practices, as well as laws against deceptive trade practices in California and Massachusetts. A complaint on those grounds, Calo said, "would not be laughed out of court."

This kind of thing is going to happen more and more, in all sorts of areas of our lives. The Internet of Things is the Internet of sensors, and the Internet of surveillance. We've long passed the point where ordinary people have any technical understanding of the different ways networked computers violate their privacy. Government needs to step in and regulate businesses down to reasonable practices. Which means government needs to prioritize security over their own surveillance needs.

from Websites Grabbing User-Form Data Before It's Submitted