I downloaded and installed a program called "Spybot" last night, for my windows machine. It searches the hard drives for any spyware sitting around tracking what you do. I was ASTOUNDED by the amount of cookies I had that were actively keeping track of my browsing habits. I was ALSO astounded by the number of gator programs I have on my computer (I've ALWAYS clicked "no" when their popup download things try to install on my machine). I was ALSO astounded that I had one or two programs actively recording my keystrokes (now I need to change all my passwords).

This creeps me out.

Has the placement of an auto-recording cookie become standard practice for all banner ad companies? I mean, I know doubleclick did it, and I know their opt-out feature is sketchy, but if these other banner ad companies are doing it and they don't even have to admit it (because no one is paying attention to them) then doubleclick has suddenly turned into the "good guys," and I don't like that world.

I'm worried about the banner advertising on Keenspot, now. Someone sent in a complaint that a banner ad (not even a popup) tried to sneak in and put one of those monitoring programs on his hard drive. I don't know if this is true or not, but that's what got me investigating. I don't know what good I'm doing my readers if I take a big stand against having popups on my site when the "normal" banner ads are being far more invasive than popups ever were, only less noticeably.

Can anyone point me in the direction of hard data on what companies put these sleeper agents on your machine via banner ads? Does anyone have the tools on hand to evaluate the banner ads being displayed on my site, to see if they're guilty of doing the same things? Where can I get these tools myself?

I'm very, very concerned about this. It'd be nice if it turned out to be nothing to worry about, but this is the internet... it doesn't work that way...

I mean, I *am*, but that's easily solvable. However, not everyone who reads my comic is going to be using a "safer" operating system. Especially if they happen to be at work (and I know many read my comic from work).

I thought it was distasteful moving into the realm of banner ads in the first place, but Keenspot needs to pay for its server fees somehow. I thought it was distasteful for them to start using Sonar, but at least they had specific information that they did user tracking, and I could post information on how to keep that from happening. And I sort of knew that most banner advertisers were using cookies to keep track of what ads you clicked on what ads you didn't -- but these are cookies that keep track of every freaking site you go to. And apparently all the big banner ad companies are engaged in this practice! Only Doubleclick got static for it, but after that died down apparently all the other companies quietly adopted the practice... only they don't even offer "opt-out" options.

So I'm kinda pissed, because the efforts I've made to reduce the intrusiveness of ads on my site (like not allowing popups and the like) are FLIMSY and USELESS in comparison to the things I can't do anything about.