"A Journal investigation finds that one of the fastest-growing businesses on the Internet is the business of spying on consumers." (Julia Angwin) As I read about the different companies that are taking personal information about consumers from the internet sites, it makes me wonder where it will all stop. One company www.lotame.com uses software called beacon that captures typing on websites from people. They research, collect, organize and invest that data information. They claim they don’t know people’s names or identities just their data profiles.
Since tracking technology is advancing so fast that there are new tools that scan instantly on the web that can assess people’s location, income, medical information and purchasing history. It used to be that monitoring was limited mainly to "cookie" files that were recording the websites people visited. Now profiles of individuals are being bought and sold on stock-market-like exchanges.
When a person surfs the Internet the information is sent to tracking companies and advertisers. Not to mention data brokers and advertising networks. It has been reported that dictionary.com has installed the most cookies. They say the information they gather is anonymous and the Internet users are identified by a number assigned to their computer.
The third party tracking files became possible in 1994 called cookies for the purpose of user convenience by remembering contents of Web shopping carts. The U.S. courts decided that it is legal to utilize the cookies. The Journal found out about the use of flash cookies and beacons (web bugs) that are placed on a computer when a user visits a website. This beacon can tell what is being typed and where the mouse is moving.
“The Journal examined the 50 most popular U.S.
websites, which account for about 40% of the Web pages viewed by Americans.
(The Wall Street Journal also tested its own site, WSJ.com.)
Cited Works
"Emily Steel, Jennifer Valentino-DeVries and Tom McGinty contributed to this report."
Julia Angwin at julia.angwin@wsj.com
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