An increasing number of web sites and marketers are adopting web bugs to store information about surfing preferences. The Bugnosis software detects the bugs on a web site and casts a blinking bug on the page to notify visitors. A user can also set the browser to utter the “uh-oh” sound when a bug is detected.
The Privacy Foundations Richard Smith wrote on his privacy tip sheet that:
“Our goal with the software is to reveal how web bugs are tracking all of us on the Internet and to get companies to ‘fess up’ about why they are using them. I've been bothered over the past 18 months by the fact that most sites that use web bugs don't disclose that fact. Any company that uses web bugs on their site should say so clearly in their privacy policies and explain the following: why they are being used, what data is sent by a bug, who gets the data, and what they are doing with it. If a company is reluctant to talk about web bugs, then they shouldn't be using them.”