Privacy Lost
Next time your shopping on the Web, think of Hansel and Gretel: Whether you realize it or not, as you traipse through a forest of web shops and cybermalls, you're leaving a cookie-crumb trail of personal information bits behind you.
Whenever you browse a site, especially one requiring a password or registration, behind-the-scenes technologies capture information about your every mouse click and keystroke. This information is stored either on the site you're visiting or on your own computer in a text -based "cookie" file --- often without your knowledge or consent.
"None of the sites that solicit personal information as part of the transaction process are informing users how that data is being used", explains David Sobel, an attorney with Washington, D.C. - based Electronic Privacy Information Center. "We don't know what goes on behind the scenes".
Net entrepreneurs, privacy experts, and government regulators all agree that online companies must be more vigilant about protecting personal privacy if electronic commerce is to thrive. For example, participants in a recent Federal Trade Commission study on consumer privacy concluded that consumers should have some say in whether information is collected and what kinds of data are gathered, as well as having access to that information.
There's no consensus, however, on how to achieve these goals. Governmental regulation might provide a remedy. Rep. Bruce Vento (D-Minnesota) recently introduced a bill that would make it illegal for online service providers to give out subscriber information without the individuals' consent. But the absence of regulation, there are ways you can erase your trail of bits. In the Network Preferences/Protocols menu of your Netscape 3.0 browser, for instance, you can elect to receive a warning that detects incoming cookies and allows you to reject them. Unfortunately, turning back cookies quickly becomes tedious, which is why you should consider picking up one of the many new privacy-protection tools that are emerging, including PGP's Cookie Cutter and Axxis Corporation's NSClean and IEClean.
Nevertheless, Sobel says, we're still in awareness-raising period: "There's real need for some sunshine on this industry". Until online shopping emerges from its Dark Ages, individual consumers will have to fend for themselves.
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