Web bug swarm grows 500 percent
Privacy from Companies
'In the last three years, Web bug use has grown nearly 500 percent, according to Cyveillance, an Internet technology and analysis company. The flood can be traced to the number of secondary pages carrying the tags, including personal Web pages linked to large community sites and Internet service providers, the report found.'

'The research highlights a growing conflict between policies and practices at many Web businesses, a potential cause for consumer backlash. It also validates efforts by privacy advocates to combat the rising use of such surveillance.'

That second paragraph reminds me of something I've been thinking lately. A lot of people... heck, most everybody... find it very easy to ignore the issues the cyber-civil-rights bunch raise, even people who work in the computer industry, chalking the whole thing up to a Chicken Little mentality. However, I'm hard pressed to come up with a prediction that either hasn't already come true, or is currently in the process of coming true. A pity we aren't all endowed with a bit more imagination... the one thing that absolutely will not happen is everything staying the same, yet it's the one thing we can really believe will happen... and our actions are affected by that, to our detriment.