TRUSTe Advises Web Community That It Has Discontinued Use of Internet.com's Web Counting Tool

August 24, 2000 – Approximately two weeks ago, TRUSTe began using a third-party Web counting tool provided by Internet.com to help us better understand which pages of the TRUSTe Web site were accessed. TRUSTe today advises the Web community that it has learned that Internet.com may have been tracking TRUSTe's Web site visitors through the collection of personally identifiable information.

Upon learning of this possibility, TRUSTe immediately cut all ties with Internet.com's Web counter service. TRUSTe will be investigating this matter to assess if Internet.com's data gathering practices are outside of its stated policy.

TRUSTe chose this service solely on the belief that Internet.com was not collecting any personally identifiable information on visitors to the TRUSTe Web site. TRUSTe's understanding was that this service was only gathering non-personally identifiable IP addresses.

TRUSTe has learned, however, that Internet.com may be engaging in other techniques to track Web site visitors and that the possibility exists that Internet.com may be gathering Web site visitors' personally identifiable information.

Said Bob Lewin, CEO and Executive Director of TRUSTe, "I want to emphasize that, at this point, there is no verifiable evidence that any personally identifiable information was gathered by Internet.com. But, as we advise other Web sites, the best practice in a case like this is to immediately eliminate the possibility that any information is being improperly transferred." TRUSTe will continue to report developments on this matter to the Web community.

TRUSTe Closes Loop on Internet.com Web Counter Product

September 5, 2000 – TRUSTe today advises the Web community that it has concluded its fact-finding efforts with Internet.com and is confident that its Web counter product was not collecting personally identifiable information. On August 24, 2000, TRUSTe advised the Web community that it had learned of the possibility that Internet.com may have been matching non-personally identifiable Internet Protocol (IP) addresses gathered through TRUSTe's use of the counter.com product with personally identifiable information. Upon learning of this possibility, TRUSTe immediately ceased using the counter.com product until more information could be gathered.

TRUSTe was using the counter.com product for a time period of approximately two weeks to assess the amount of "hits" on several pages of the TRUSTe Web site. Consistent with the TRUSTe privacy statement, TRUSTe was not gathering any personally identifiable information; rather, it was logging hits via incoming anonymous IP addresses.

According to Internet.com, the company does not keep permanent records of individual user's activity. Internet.com creates temporary caches that store Web browser visitors' data temporarily in order to increment a software count. The cache operates as first-in, first-out and, as such, is constantly being overwritten. The only action Internet.com performs on the data in the cache is to increment the counters' values in order to create reports about each websites/page traffic. These reports are password-protected and available only to the webmaster who installed the counter on the website.

 

Wiley Rein LLP