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Web Bugs Know What You Do

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Privacy Group Releases Web Bug Plug-In

by Dave Murphy
ISSN 1535-3613

Dave Murphy, DGL President & ITrain founder The Privacy Foundation, a nonprofit privacy group head quartered in Denver, Colorado, is preparing a browser plug-in that will help users detect web bugs.

Web bugs are surveillance tags, usually invisible .gif graphic images, that are inserted into the HTML code that makes up webpages. The web bugs allow online marketers to track users' surfing habits.

According to the Privacy Foundation, about 10 percent of all webpages use web bugs. Intuitively, this number seems high to me, but then again, online marketers have been stooping to some pretty-low tricks to keep an eye on our online habits. So, maybe the number is reasonable.

The nonprofit agency will have completed the software development in about a month. The plug-in will work with Microsoft Internet Explorer. I'd like to see a plug-in for Netscape Navigator and Opera; if you would too, drop a note to the Privacy Foundation.

Installing the software triggers a pop-up window every time a Web surfer encounters one of the bugs, accompanied by a soundtrack that says, "Uh-oh!" Heavy surfers of commercial sites may find the recurring sounds annoying.

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References

Privacy Foundation
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updated December 21, 2000
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