At 10:32 PM 7/03/01 -0500, you wrote:
>> Do you guys want to alienate all amateurs on this list? ;)
>
>Of course not.
There *was* a smile there!
>> My visitor stats say that 80% of my visitors are using less than or equal
>> to 1024x768.
>
>How do you know that is their display resolution, and not what their browser
>is set to? I don't know how you do what you claim, so I have no idea how
>you get that info.
>
>If my display information is being sent to someone, that would tick me off,
>because it's none of their business what my display settings are. What else
>gets sent?
Sorry to give you the bad news, but if you surf around with java/javascript
on, site counters will gather the following information and report it back
to the site owner:
- Your browser and version no.
- Your operating system
- Your resolution and color depth
- Your domain (ie your country of origin, and even the server from which
your connection emanates)
- The referring site, ie the site or search engine from which you came
By the way, the site doesn't have to display a site counter for this to
happen, so you can't know when it occurs.
Naughtier sites can even use trickery to collect your email name and some
other personal info, but it depends on how your PC is configured. And also
whether you have the latest Microsoft security hole-fixes! I agree with
your concerns, I think a lot of it sucks too. Which is why I use a
firewall, and I don't use Java on my sites, so at least visitors aren't
*forced* to throw their info around!
I am only interested in collecting the browser/resolution/color depth info
because I work with many web pages and I always test the pages on the most
common platforms/setups.
Regards, Mark T.
==========================================
Mark Thomas markthom@camtech.net.au
