Great site I use it frequently.
Tracking the number of inquiries a Flight/Tail# has had could be useful information. Maybe even listing the member names that have inquired on your tail#.
It seems this site is about providing a database of information about the history and activities of aircraft. I think you should also provide accountability for the users of flightaware.com in respect to who/how many are looking at your tail number. This information is fair to aircraft owners.
Accountability? Respect? Let’s put up a big banner on the front page that says, “ALL YOUR ACTIVITY IS MONITORED AND REPORTED TO AIRCRAFT OWNERS,” and see how well the site does.
Awful idea.
A little bit of a problem with that. You don’t need to be a registered user to get flight tracking information… What good what it do for an aircraft owner to to see “‘ANONYMOUS’ inquired on your tail number”? It would just send the wrong message to the owner - that “Big Brother is watching”, and someone else is looking at the data! That’s NOT what this site is about. Yeah, we’re lookin’ in on Big Brother’s data, but other than being able to see how well or crappy a pilot can enter a holding pattern and fly it properly, what’s the harm in that? 
This is pure BS. What possible use could it be to hold users accountable while viewing PUBLIC DATA? Besides, it ain’t NOBODY’S business what I watch. Often, it’s just a random flight.
Believe it our not, The vast majority of people here (99.9999999999999999999%) are not, as you seem to imply, terrorists.
Actually, I find the suggestion a good one.
I’d be curious to see how many people do query my tail number. I personally don’t care who does, but the amount of queries on my tail number may be an interesting statistic especially while I am enroute and especially if my route is queried via random flights.
Whether you like it or not, as long as you have an IP address, you post and query on a public website you are not so anonymous and whether you like it or not, it just may be important to somebody to know what you watch (or not).
If you don’t like it, don’t be on the web as there is always the chance big brother is watching. You lose your expectation of privacy once you leave the friendly confines of your home whether it be physically or electronically. Blame that on the terrorists
Allen
What he wants is names. I know that the IP address can identify a user - up to a point. It’s possible to have anonymous IP addresses. An IP address can also identify more than one user as in the case of a networked computer system.
There’s no reason for anybody, especially the government, to affirmatively collect names of people looking at public data.
I have nothing to hide, do you???
What difference does it make for statistics gathering whether it be private individual or gubment??? Unless of course you are doing something illicit with your queries and don’t want to be discovered???
Bottom line, is if you have nothing to hide then there is nothing bad with data collection on tail number queries.
I highly doubt any harm to you could be realized from your history of queries. So again, I ask, what you got to hide?
Allen
What have aircraft owners got to hide by blocking their tail numbers?
That’s an awful excuse that’s used way too often. Let me come look around your house, if you’ve got nothing to hide. 
If you want to see how many people look at your aircraft’s page, fine. But to have a list of who looked and how many times is crazy. If the owners want to block their planes, we would need the same right.
Most common Joe / Jill owners don’t have their tail numbers blocked or there wouldn’t be a Flight Aware website.
I’d suspect the reason for blocking is the notoriety of the person on the plane, and blocking the number will prevent the paperazzi coming to the airport. I don’t have such problems myself, and nothing to hide since I don’t have any notoriety. My arrival at the airport doesn’t draw the same attention as a celebrity.
My address is in the FAA database for the airplane and also my pilot licence information is out there for public consumption. I don’t have anything to hide. Use mapquest or your favorite mapping program and you know where I live.
Which makes me thing there would be an ulterior iliicit motive if you would need the same right (your words, not mine!) for protecting what tail numbers you are tracking. Any casual user of this website would not NEED the same rights since all they are doing is casual tracking WITHOUT illicit motive. Otherwise, why would you need to protect your identity? Casual trackers won’t have that need.
As stated earlier, it’s not like you are divulging any private information about yourself, such as SSN, financial data or even your shoe size.
Allen
An IP address is NOT going to do you any good. I am VERY anonymous with my IP Address. The only people who can know who I am through my IP address are the people who work at my ISP. The authorities can request that information, and the ISPs usually cooperate.
Remember the RIAA/Napster music download case? It takes a court order for a 3rd party to get an ISP to connect a name with the number.
You are only validating my point, that the identity of the query is not hidden.
If it takes a court order, so what? It’s an avenue to getting the truth out. Use all the anonymizers you want, the IP can and will be tracked down. All web anonymizers do is add an extra piece to the back tracking puzzles. Been there, done this in my IT job.
Yes, it doesn’t prove who was behind the keyboard, but when the chips come down, the owner of that computer will have to pony up to the responsibility or tell “who dunnit” Remember the grandmothers that got sued for their childrens misguded downloading activities?
When you think about it, it’s no different for an airplane owner.
Some other pilot flies my plane and busts some restricted airspace. Tail number is mine, guess who the FAA will call first if the pilot cannot be found.
Sure won’t be the pilot since the tailnumber belongs to me. And if you think I will take the heat for somebody else’s infraction, you would have another thing coming.
**Again, I ask, what does a person have to hide if a person like me is curious who has queried my number? **
If all he is doing is querying, nothing to hide eh?
Unless they have a hidden agenda for illicit needs, there is no harm in me knowing who queried my tail number or how many queries were run on my tail number.
Allen
What stops a person from using a phony n-number either? An old mechanic friend of mine used to use his buddy’s n-number when flying his champ up and down the east half of the country never getting above 500agl. Wasn’t his buddy surprised when the landing fees started coming in for and airplane sitting is peices in his hangar!
Very true. I will equate your example above to locks. Locks are designed to keep the honest person out. A criminal hell bent on breaking in will just break the window right next to the locked door to enter. Less fuss and muss to the criminal.
So, for somebody bent on doing misdeeds, yes, the system is not flawless, but even if somebody uses a wrong tail number, especially in the ADIZ area, I’d suspect that the controller will track the little blip to the airport and call the airport to see who arrived recently or that lil blib will get an unexpected wingman.
Of course 500 AGL, I’d also suspect he would be below radar coverage 
and I’d be wondering why or what’s he hiding to want to be below radar coverage especially in the east part of the country?
Allen
Just fun! If I had a champ or a cub I’d never get above 500agl either! “racing” cars on the interstate (and losing), messin’ with the train engineers, buzzin’ birds, cussin’ out the neighborhood holligans.
(please, it certainly wasn’t drug running, unless on a very personal level, the champ can only carry about one person’s fix!)
Are you REALLY going to go to the trouble of trying to get a court order to find out who queried your tail number? And if five people query your tail number, you’re gonna TRY to get five court orders?!?
…and IF you’re successful (which I doubt you would be), then you’ve found out NeedleNose’s real name and address… Then what?
I’d be the same way cfijames, but my luck would be that the car behind me on the city streets would call the FAA and tell them I was impeding the flow of traffic for going soooooooo slooooooooooow.
Check out alexisparkinn.com/photogalle … -Wilga.wmv for a “ride over the autobahn”
Allen
Operating your aircraft under your own personal name and not under the cover of an LLC or some other entity is another issue that I’m not going to get into in this discussion.
As for the privacy issue, you’re coming across as just seeming like a jealous pilot that is PO’d that we can see what you do and not what we do. My advice? Get over it. You’re only logic is the “If you have nothing to hide…” excuse, which is incredibly flawed and irrelevant. If I don’t want people to see what I do, it is my right not to let them see what I do. If you want people to be able to track your home address through your N number, that’s your own problem and has nothing to do with this discussion.
You obviously are missing my point. I am the one that is not worried whether somebody knows I queried their number. I DON’T HAVE ANYTHING TO HIDE.
I don’t care who queries my tail number.
I am curious on how many hits my tail number gets queried thus agreeing with the original poster of this thread.
The point I was trying to bring across is that anonymity (sp?) on the internet doesn’t exist. For a person to expect complete anonymous appearance on something that has the ability to track transactions is ludicrous.
I wouldn’t care if my name popped up on somebody’s tail number if I queried it. I don’t have anything to hide.
For Dami to want complete secrecy (start at the beginning) is absurd for an activity as benign as querying a tail number on a public website.
You would be surprised at what small things take a court order to get a job done. That’s what the system is there for in order for me to do my job. Yes, a waste of tax payer dollars, but blame your privacy advocates.
Kabeesh???
Allen
You may want to do your research before posting…
Insofar as privacy with the FAA, I do have the choice of “opting out” and protecting my data.
On the contrary, I am quite proud of the fact, I can prove that I accomplished my dreams, so P.O’d I am not. Not many people can do this.
When you are in a public place, you lose your right for privacy which is the foundation of this discussion.
A public website IS NO DIFFERENT. If you want privacy, work on a local area network. Otherwise, get over it (your words).
Allen
Ok, here’s what you don’t get. NO ONE CARES whether you care or not whether someone tracks you. This isn’t about you, it’s about the people tracking you.
So there’s no anonymity on the internet. Great, so now we can just throw all our info out there, because there’s no way to protect ourselves. There are ways to protect yourselves and stay anonymous and private, ways you obviously don’t know about. You are the kind of person that thinks they’re ok because they don’t do anything bad on the computer, and then raises living hell when their computer ends up filled with viruses and trojans.
And to say that you don’t mind if your name came up, therefore everyone else shouldn’t mind, is childish logic. A grown pilot should know better than that.
And it’s not ‘Kabeesh,’ capeesh?