Clickstream Concerns
The offline analogy to clickstream capture technology is that of Big Brother's watchful eyes. Wherever one goes, whatever one sees, does, or purchases, a record of it is made. One knows neither what exactly is out there nor who holds the information, but only that it exists. Furthermore, whereas many of these actions would be performed in public places in the offline world, a significant amount of Web surfing goes on in the private domain such as a personal residence. If this methodology of information gathering is frowned upon offline, it must also be deemed unacceptable online.

The consumer experience can be characterized by three main themes:

  1. Invisibility: The collection of personal information through the use of clickstream capture technology goes unannounced and unnoticed. Of the sites that allow third parties to place cookies on user computers, almost 80% of a random sampling of sites did not disclose that fact to consumers. This means that even if a user trusts a Web site which has a complete privacy policy, if that site allows third party cookies (most commonly advertisement banners), there will still be invisible data collection going on. The choice to participate is of the form "opt-out", meaning that users are by default included in the consumer research, requiring an explicit request to opt-out. This format of data collection keeps it secretive.
  2. Ubiquity: Personal information is being collected everywhere on the Internet. A Georgetown University study found that nine out of ten commercial Web sites ask for some piece of personal information whether name, email address, or postal address. Not only are sites explicitly gathering information for their own purposes, there is a tremendous amount of third party invisible data gathering going on as well. Approximately 80% of a survey of the most popular sites allowed the placement of cookies by third parties.
  3. Invasion: With the use of cookies, web servers are in a sense invading the client machine by storing files on it that contribute to a cause that most Americans disagree with (as evidenced by previously cited statistics). The invasion is thus not limited to an attack on personal privacy, but even a physical covert invasion on the user's hard disk.