A cookie is a small file that is put by a web site on a
visitor’s hard disk so that the site can remember something about
the visitor at a later time.
The State Attorney’s office in Cook County, Chicago is suing
internet marketing companies ClearStation and DoubleClick in
relation to their practices with cookies. The State Attorney’s
office alleges that the companies failed to disclose full details
to customers about their use of cookies, including how much detail
about a customer’s computer use the cookies compile and transfer to
third party advertisers. The lawsuit seeks an end to the practices
and a civil penalty of up to $50,000.
Meanwhile, Google’s new toolbar was launched on Monday,
available for downloading by users. The company has made an effort
to tell users that installing the toolbar will track every site
they visit to analyse search and surfing patterns.
However, critics suggest that there is a risk that data could be
used to identify individuals, contrary to the claims of Google.
Jason Catlett, the president of Junkbusters, a US organisation that
campaigns against spam, said that storing a permanent history of
the URLs visited according to a unique ID constitutes a privacy
risk.
In related news, the internet division of Toys ‘R’ Us is being
investigated by New Jersey’s Division of Consumer Affairs over
privacy concerns. It is partly the result of a lawsuit that accuses
Toysrus.com of sharing personal customer information with market
researchers in a manner that is not consistent with its privacy
policy, which states that personal information is "completely
confidential".
