collected customers’ data. Most of these sites had some privacy policy information, but
the information hardly clarified the policy that the sites employed.
84
Controversy erupted in February 1999 when Intel's Pentium III chip was found to
carry unique numerical identifiers that allowed customers’ activities to be monitored and
recorded.
85
It was also found that Microsoft supervised customers’ actions by assigning a
unique identifier in a Registration Wizard to each PC on which its software was loaded.
86
Although Microsoft stated that the identifiable number helped to aid personnel in
resolving diagnostic problems for their customers’ computers more accurately, privacy
advocates feared that the number could be used to track a single user as well as his or her
navigation activities across computer networks.
87
Both Netscape Communicator and
Internet Explorer contain "smart browsing" features that serve to track traffic: the features
read hidden files storing Internet addresses of user-visited sites from the user’s
computer.
88
84
See Mary J. Culnan, Privacy Online in 1999: A Report to the Federal Trade
Commission (May 17, 1999), available at <http://www.msb.edu.faculty/culnanm/
gippshome.html>.
85
See John Markoff, Growing Compatibility Issue: Computers and User Privacy,
N.Y. Times, Mar. 3, 1999, at A1.
86
See John Markoff, Microsoft to Alter Its Software, Responding to Privacy
Concerns, N.Y. Times, Mar. 7, 1999, 1, at 1.
87
Id.
88
See Michael Brick, DoubleClick Raises More Hackles With Privacy Advocates,
N.Y. Times on the Web (Dec. 1, 1999), available at < http://www.nytimes.
com/99/12/01/news/financial/01click.html>; See Bob Tedeschi, Critics Press Legal
Assault on Tracking of Web Users, N.Y. Times on the Web, (Feb. 7, 2000), available at
<http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/02/cyber/commerce/ 07commerce.html>; see
Jeri Clausing, After Intel Chip’s Debut, Critics Step Up Attack, N.Y. Times on the Web
Convention