Privacy 2000: In Web We Trust?

In the real world, nobody knows what TV commercials you watch or which sitcoms you surf. When you go strolling through the mall, no one's making note of the stores you visit or the clothes you try on. But on the Internet, Web sites are doing all of this and more. And that makes some people mad as hell.

Jeffrey Wilens is so outraged that he filed a class action suit against RealNetworks for allegedly violating his and other consumers' privacy. The attorney from Mission Viejo, California, claims in his suit that the company's RealJukebox software secretly recorded the titles of music CDs and MP3 tracks he played on his PC, then sent the data back to RealNetworks--creating a detailed profile of Wilens' musical tastes. The suit, filed last November, seeks damages of at least $500 for each RealJukebox user in California.

"I don't accept the concept that there is no privacy on the Internet," Wilens says. "I think rogue companies need to learn to modify their behavior."

RealNetworks flatly denies Wilens' charges. "Contrary to media reports, we have never monitored user behavior or listening habits," says Keela Robison, product manager for the Seattle-based company. However, she admits that RealJukebox did create a unique identification number for each user and stored the numbers in the same database that holds user names and e-mail addresses. Theoretically, these numbers could track where people go on the Web. The company quickly released a patch that disabled the software's ability to issue the IDs, but that wasn't enough to satisfy Wilens and others who had filed a total of a dozen suits against RealNetworks at press time.

Meanwhile, six other lawsuits are pending against Internet advertising network DoubleClick for creating online profiles of consumers. And three similar suits have been filed against Alexa, an Amazon subsidiary. With few other avenues of recourse at their disposal, users have taken to the courts to fight for their right to privacy. But the battle has just begun.