Yahoo! has been accused of breaking Texas's anti-stalking law by tracking computer users' every move on the Internet without their consent, according to a $4 billion dollar lawsuit filed here.
Universal Image, which does Web business as Chalkboardtalk.com, has hit both Yahoo! and its Yahoo! Broadcast unit, says Bloomberg News. The Dallas-based firm is an educational video provider filing suit in December. They've asked a judge here to declare Yahoo broke the anti-stalking law by using cookies - files attached to a Net surfer's computer and collecting information such as names and addresses.
Universal Image attorney Larry Friedman tells Bloomberg the suit "concerns the privacy right of every Internet user in America." Yahoo! has declined comment on the suit so far.
The Yahoo! suit illustrates a concern privacy advocates have had since the phalanx of Christmas holiday shopping online - that some of the Web's top sites are gathering up information on consumers whether or not the consumers want it gathered up.
In December, the Electronic Privacy Information Center issued a report saying Netizens in general and online consumers in particular were more at risk for privacy violations now than in 1997. EPIC executive director Mark Rotenberg, at the time of the report's release, also cited using cookies along with extensive customer profiling and intrusive marketing among the reasons for the inflated risk.
"Anonymity, which remains crucial to privacy on the Internet, is being squeezed out by the rise of electronic commerce," he told CNET. The EPIC report also looked at Web retailer's compliance with fair information practices - guidelines providing basic privacy protection, which EPIC says none of the companies surveyed addressed properly.
