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Fair use for educational/research purposes only!Beware! Your Computer May Be Watching You Wednesday, August 23, 2000
By LANCE GAY
While you are surfing the Internet, is the Internet watching you?
You bet.
Privacy advocates are raising alarms about "spyware" programs that monitor the electronic footprints of every Internet store you visit or stock report you read, and clandestinely report back to advertising firms what you did.
The advertising industry insists the programs are harmless, arguing that the programs only compile aggregate data so ad firms can prove the effectiveness of Internet advertisements. No one is identified by name, they say.
But privacy advocates see special dangers in these new programs, noting that the spyware is dropped into millions of individual computers whose owners aren't aware they're being watched. Since the spyware programs run undetected while surfers use the Internet, individuals can be easily identified, they say.
The new generation of spyware is hidden inside programs that are downloaded from computer disks or Internet sites offering free programs to track stock quotes, speed up downloads or play games.
Once the software is installed, each move on the Internet - called clickstream data in the industry - is reported back over the same telephone line the Internet surfer is using. In some cases, the program then feeds back banner ads to the individual computer.
Montreal spyware sleuth Gilles Lalonde (http://www.infoforce.qc.ca/spyware) has compiled a list of more than 400 spyware-infected programs he has found on the Internet.
Steve Gibson, a Laguna Hills, Calif., computer programmer, calls them "browser parasites" and is offering free software (http://www.grc.com) that sniffs out the stealth programs, reports what they are doing, and shows how users can kill them.
"It's my computer,'' Gibson's Web site says.
Gibson says his success is an indication of the growing concerns about Internet privacy: He has distributed almost 1.5 million copies of his detection program since he first offered it in March.
"I have nothing against the idea of ad-sponsored programs, as long as the end user is fully informed in advance,'' Gibson said. "But the complaints I hear constantly is that these advertising firms are doing it without the user's knowledge, or permission."
Gibson says spyware is the latest industry response in the raging Internet advertising wars between Internet users who don't want ads and firms that want to prove their ads are being read, or seek to create demographic profiles to hone customer lists.
Advertising firms initially used "cookies," or small software programs inserted in an individual's computer to figure out what sites were of interest to Internet users. But surfers found ways of defeating the technology by setting their Internet browsers to reject cookies, or just by killing the cookies on their hard drives. (They can be found at C:/Windows/Cookies on IBM systems, and under MagicCookies on Apple computers.)
Advertising firms now have resorted to using Web bugs, or sophisticated programs hidden in Web pages, and spyware to monitor Internet users.
Gibson won a victory this month when the advertising firm Radiate, which claims to have installed programs in 30 million computers, added new privacy sections to its ad-serving software, allowing users to decide in advance whether they want to have their Internet activities monitored.
Radiate's programs are buried in free software, and deliver ads to people who download and use the programs. The company says the ads pay for the free software.
Radiate spokesman Peter Fuller said the company planned to make the changes before Gibson exposed Radiate's hidden programs on his Web site. The new programs also allow users to edit the data their computers send back to Radiate.
"There was never anything nefarious" about Radiate's programs, Fuller said. "We're just trying to be above-board with consumers."
Gibson congratulated Radiate for the changes, but said other firms are using similar hidden programs without alerting Internet users.
Internet consultants are warning business to pay more attention to privacy issues, or face a consumer backlash or even costly suits.
Just this month, Toys "R" Us announced it has stopped using Coremetrics, a market data mining company, after a civil suit was filed in California charging that the firm monitored visitors to its Web site and compiled data banks of private information from them.
In response to complaints of spyware sleuths, RealNetworks Inc., manufacturer of a popular software program that makes downloading online easier, removed a feature that sent a personal identifier to its home office every time an Internet file was downloaded.
Kevin Mabley, director of research for Cyberdialogue, an Internet firm that makes customer relations software for business, said it's in the best interest of Internet companies to ask consumers in advance before loading their computers with spying software.
"You don't want to offend your best customers," he said.
Mabley said a survey of 13,000 Internet users found many would give information freely if they were asked and were shown it would help them steer through the Web.
"There's not a need to be secretive and behind-the-back," Mabley said.
http://capitolhillblue.com/Article.asp?ID=778
-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), August 23, 2000
For your own protection search out these programs:
- ZoneAlarm
- Jammer
- Cookie Pal
- PGP
-- spider (spider0@usa.net), August 23, 2000.