ch showed that the use of third-party cookies, even though anonymous, was a matter of great consumer concern. Microsoft's feature goes the extra step of explaining, in each cookie-blocking dialog with the user, how the cookie's placement enables the third party to recognize them as they browse among different sites.Web bugsA Web bug is a graphic on a Web page or in an Email message that is designed to monitor who is reading the Web page or Email message. Web bugs are often invisible because they are typically “only 1-by-1 pixel in size”. They are often represented as HTML/IMG tags. Ad networks can use Web bugs to add information to a personal profile of what sites a person is visiting. The personal profile is identified by the browser cookie of an ad network. At some later time, this personal profile which is stored in a data base server belonging to the ad network, determines what banner ad one is shown. Another use of Web bugs is to provide an independent accounting of how many people have visited a particular Web site and to gather statistics about Web browser usage at different places on the Internet. The types of information being sent to the server when the Web bug is viewed are the IP address of the computer that fetched the Web bug, the URL of the page that the Web bug is located on the URL of the Web bug image, the time the Web bug was viewed, and the type of browser that fetched the Web bug image.Web bugs in Word Documents A privacy group (The Privacy Foundation) recently warned that so-called "Web bugs" could track Microsoft Word documents as they are distributed among Internet users. They discovered it was possible to place privacy-sensitive document-tracking code in Word documents, email messages, and other HTML-aware applications. The code makes it possible to track where a Word document goes when it leaves the author's hands. "A word-processingdocument can 'phone home,'" explained software analyst Richar...
