Cookie monsters: browser beware as political websites plant spy devices

Nicky Phillips
Brisbane Times
November 9, 2010

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

Politicians are letting foreign-owned companies covertly gather information about voters.

The websites of Barry O’Farrell, Kristina Keneally, Tony Abbott and the Greens plant spying devices on visitors’ computers, which can track them as they browse the internet.
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Information gathered about a user’s online behaviour can be used to build detailed profiles to help target advertisements – a practice many believe is a threat to privacy.

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Online tracking is done mainly by cookies (text files) and beacons (invisible images).

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This article was posted: Tuesday, November 9, 2010 at 12:25 pm

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