The object is to offer the user a program, product, advertisement or service that better suits his needs and thereby increase the chances that he will buy it. The Protection of Privacy Law indicates the problems involved in adapting law to the virtual world. When the Law was enacted, global computer networks were not yet in existence. The Law did not and could not envisage the Internet. It provided that the performance of certain acts constitutes an infringement of privacy, but covertly shadowing personal habits is probably not one of those acts.
Harassment is, per se, a vague term.
Consideration of the Law and the relevant case law indicates that these terms have to date been analysed in relation to very tangible acts that occur in the physical world. The Explanatory Notes on the Draft Protection of Privacy Law explain that section 2 prohibits harassment in order to protect the individual against infringing conduct in the private and public domains, even when that conduct does not constitute damage to his person or amount to defamation . Harassment must therefore amount to infringing conduct in the private and public domains . As an example of prohibited harassment, mention was made of following a person s every move, amounting to overt monitoring and keeping a close watch on a person s home - such action might unsettle a person s peace of mind, remove his feeling of personal security and his sense that he can keep his life to himself without his personal affairs becoming a show for others . Hence, it is doubtful whether a covert act of the type of which the computer user is unaware, would be deemed an infringement of privacy in the sense of the Law, since it is not prima facie harassment.