E-commerce sites use cookies to track customer purchases. Coding in a Web address can trick the user's browser into responding to a request for a cookie as if the request came from an authorized site. Users can opt out, either by setting their Web browser not to accept cookies, or to warn them before accepting cookies. But this also turns off the helpful uses of cookies. Web bugs, or clear GIFs, are images embedded in HTML-enhanced commercial emails or Web page software code that help transmit data to a remote computer when the page is viewed.
Web bugs monitor who's reading.
These stealth tools build online profiles and count the number of times a page is accessed. In March 2001 Privacy Council CEO Gary Clayton displayed Web bug technology before Congressionial lawmakers, stunned as Clayton stole over 1,000 names and addresses from a hard drive's address book. This is similar to commercial espionage. However, most people have no idea Web bugs exist. Guidelines from the Privacy Foundation demand that Internet advertising companies and Web sites using Web bugs must use icons to indicate their presence and identify the company harvesting data.