Internet Tracking Devices Essay Research Paper Internet

Internet Tracking Devices Essay, Research Paper

Internet Trackers

Cookies

Cookies are small text files stored on Internet browsers that assign unique numbers to individual users. These cookies are usually placed on Internet users’ computers by web-sites without their knowledge. Every time that a user returns to the site that placed a cookie on their browser, the cookie is sent back from the user to the original web-site, providing a way to remember over time particular individuals. Furthermore, cookies are often simultaneously placed by third parties. The most common third-party cookies are placed by the various companies that serve banner ads that appear across many web-sites. Top companies in this business category include DoubleClick and Engage. Third-party cookie placement has been a hot target for electronic privacy advocates because it is a mechanism through which the third party may build a cookie-based profile of the sites a user visits.

What users can do to protect themselves against Cookies.

Microsoft has recently released a browser add-on intended to provide users with greater control over the browser-tracking cookies handed out by websites. The new features in the updated browser give you a clearer understanding of different types of cookies and where they originate, as well as an easier way to manage and delete them,” according to Microsoft’s download site. Microsoft’s latest browser update has generated applause from privacy advocates — and the hesitant acceptance of online advertising firms, which worried that rejected cookies could limit the effectiveness of targeted ads on the Web. Privacy advocates consider the dangers of the often-invisible user tracking that takes place on the Web to be tied in large part to third-party cookies. The latest update of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer differentiates between first- and third-party cookies. The browser will then let the user refuse third-party cookies. Microsoft said it made its decision to offer the software after its own research showed that the use of third-party cookies, even though anonymous, was a matter of great consumer concern. Microsoft’s feature goes the extra step of explaining, in each cookie-blocking dialog with the user, how the cookie’s placement enables the third party to recognize them as they browse among different sites.

Web bugs

A Web bug is a graphic on a Web page or in an Email message that is designed to monitor who is reading the Web page or Email message. Web bugs are often invisible because they are typically “only 1-by-1 pixel in size”. They are often represented as HTML/IMG tags. Ad networks can use Web bugs to add information to a personal profile of what sites a person is visiting. The personal profile is identified by the browser cookie of an ad network. At some later time, this personal profile which is stored in a data base server belonging to the ad network, determines what banner ad one is shown. Another use of Web bugs is to provide an independent accounting of how many people have visited a particular Web site and to gather statistics about Web browser usage at different places on the Internet. The types of information being sent to the server when the Web bug is viewed are the IP address of the computer that fetched the Web bug, the URL of the page that the Web bug is located on the URL of the Web bug image, the time the Web bug was viewed, and the type of browser that fetched the Web bug image.

Web bugs in Word Documents

A privacy group (The Privacy Foundation) recently warned that so-called “Web bugs” could track Microsoft Word documents as they are distributed among Internet users.

They discovered it was possible to place privacy-sensitive document-tracking code in Word documents, email messages, and other HTML-aware applications. The code makes it possible to track where a Word document goes when it leaves the author’s hands. “A word-processing

document can ‘phone home,’” explained software analyst Richard Smith, chief technology officer at the Privacy Foundation. The code makes it possible to track where a Word document goes when it leaves the author’s hands. “A word-processing document can ‘phone home,’” explained software analyst Richard Smith, chief technology officer at the Privacy Foundation. In theory the vulnerability would allow the author to find out when a document was passed from one reader to another, or sent outside of an organization’s network. Smith said that although there is no known exploitation of the vulnerability, several likely uses exist. A company, for example, could plant code in documents that surreptitiously detects and tracks leaks of confidential documents. Or a copyright holder might use the feature to track possible copyright infringement of newsletters and reports. The problem affects Mac and PC versions of Microsoft Word 97 and all subsequent versions, in addition to other applications. Smith said the bug affects any application capable of displaying HTML-based content. The same issue, for example, has emerged in the use of HTML-enhanced programs such as Netscape Mail, Eudora, and Microsoft Outlook, which can notify a server when a user opens a message containing a Web bug. Web bugs don’t require the use of cookies. They only need code that tells the document to access an invisible graphic file on a remote server, Smith said. Accessing the graphic f