Bashful Browsers

Jacob Sullum | May 24, 2000

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More to the point, many millions of consumers clearly are willing to settle for less. Why should the FTC second-guess them?

To be fair, not all of the information gathering on the Web is of the obvious, fill-in-the-fields variety. Even without your deliberate participation, Web sites can track your online activity, which helps target advertising.

Personally, this sort of thing doesn’t bother me. But privacy advocates get quite worked up about it, imagining how such information might be combined with data from other sources to produce "detailed dossiers" and "psychographic profiles."

If that sends a chill down your spine, take heart. Coming soon are software solutions aimed at blocking online tracking. In the meantime, "Surfer Beware" is a good rule of thumb for the bashful.