(NATIONAL) — It seems as though some large corporations that have a heavy presence on the Internet have become obsessed in recent years with not only knowing when a web surfer comes to their own web site and what they do on that site, but where that surfer goes anywhere on the Internet after visiting their place of business and what they do on their travels.
It’s the cyberspace equivalent of a private detective from a major retailer such as Sears or Walmart getting in a car and following you around for the rest of your life after you leave their store, watching and recording your every move by car, transit, bike or foot. Where you go, who you see, what you do, where and how you spend your money, what you buy.
And now a few lines of copy in a Wall Street Journal article appear to have lifted the lid on another industry snooping secret: major websites such as MSN.com and Hulu.com have reportedly been tracking people’s online activities using powerful new methods that are almost impossible for computer users to detect, says the WSJ article.
The Journal says new research shows reveals that the new tracking techniques – which are perfectly legal – reach far beyond the traditional computer code “cookie,” which is essentially a small file that websites routinely install on users’ computers to help track their activities on a website.
The WSJ article says Hulu and MSN have been installing files known as “supercookies,” which are capable of re-creating users’ profiles after people deleted regular cookies, according to researchers at Stanford University and University of California at Berkeley.
While some companies have been criticized for the selling of private data online, a few sites that use supercookies said the “supercookie tracking” was inadvertent and they would stop using it.
MSN and Hulu, who were both notified that they had been using supercookies, announced Wednesday they would investigate the matter.
http://liarcatchers.com/cyber_investigations.html
