[via Phil Agre’s Red Rock Eater News Service]: PRIVACY Forum: Massive Tracking of Web Users Planned — Via ISPs!. “Picture a world where information about your every move on the Web,

including the sites that you visit, the keywords that you enter into search

engines, and so on, are all shipped off to a third party, with the willing

cooperation of your Internet Service Provider (ISP). None of those pesky

cookies to disable, no outside Web sites to put on block lists–just a direct

flow of data from your ISP to the unseen folks with the dollar signs (or

pound, yen, euro, or whatever signs) gleaming brightly in their eyes behind

the scenes. You’ll of course be told that your information is “anonymous”

and that you can trust everyone involved, that you’ll derive immense benefits

from such tracking, and that you have an (at least theoretical) opt-in or

opt-out choice.”