As visitors navigate through a Web site, providers can track which of its own pages are being visited by the user, and providers can view the last page a user visited before coming to the site. This information can also be used to create a consumer profile. These are small text files that the server writes to the user's hard disk without the user's knowledge. Cookies cannot be accessed by anyone except the server who put them on the hard disk. Once again, this information may be used to create consumer profiles.
Consumers make tradeoffs as they search the Internet.
By paying the price of privacy, Web users can receive information custom-tailored to their interests. By taking a moment to read a Web site's privacy policy, consumers can make informed decisions about how their personal information is collected and used. A broad body of Americans draw the line somewhere in there. But others believe the price to be too high. Whether information gathered by Web sites is used for internal marketing strategies or sold to outside sources, some don't like the idea that they are leaving a trail of personal data for strangers to access.