WEB BUGS: TEN STEPS YOU SHOULD TAKE

WEB BUGS: TEN STEPS YOU SHOULD TAKE
Internet advertisers are collecting detailed
information about the online behavior of
consumers. Consumers may not be aware
this is happening. Web site operators need
to notify consumers of the information
collection practices associated with their
pages (whether these practices are controlled
by third-party advertisers or the web
site itself) and give consumers a reasonablyaccessible
method for opting out.
What’s a web bug? A web bug (sometimes
called a “clear gif” by the advertising industry) is
an inconspicuous graphic loaded on a web page,
usually from a different server than that used for
the rest of the page. Web bugs are often invisible
because they are extremely small. They are
placed on a page to allow the source to record
“hit” information about visitors to that page. (A
“hit” is the retrieval of any item, like a page or a
graphic, from a web server.) This hit information
is reported to the advertising networks who have a
relationship with the site.
What information does a web bug report? A
web bug gathers the Internet Protocol (IP) address
of the computer that produced the hit. (An IP
address is the unique numeric identifier for a
computer attached to the Internet.) It also reports
the Universal Resource Locator (URL) of the
page on which the web bug was placed (e.g.,
www.quicken.com); the URL for the web bug
graphic or image (which usually comes from a
different server); the time the web bug was
viewed; the kind of browser (e.g., Internet Explorer)
the user is using; and information about
any “cookie” set by the web bug. (A “cookie” is a
piece of information stored on the user’s disk
drive when the web browser accesses a server.
The browser stores the information in a text file,
and this information is sent back to the particular
server each time the browser retrieves a page from
that server. Cookies are used to identify unique
users.)
Because each advertising company has relationships
with a network of sites, information gathered
from multiple web bugs hit by a single user
can help the advertising network build a detailed
profile of what sites a particular person is visiting,
and their activities on those sites.
Why should you care? On November 8, the
Department of Commerce and the Federal Trade
Commission held a joint public meeting on online
profiling — the creation of numeric profiles of
users’ online activity by advertising agencies and
others. At this meeting, representatives of the
Internet advertising industry and consumer groups
discussed advertisers’ practice of placing “web