by Maureen Sirhal

About the author: Maureen Sirhal is a reporter for the National Journal.

By now, it’s a cliché to say that the Internet raises privacy concerns. The instantaneous nature and global reach of the Web, and the ease with which consumers can be tracked, classified, and marketed to, have raised worries about privacy to new heights.

On one level, this is understandable. Thanks to advances in information gathering, law enforcement groups and government agencies can now pilfer through millions of bits of data in seconds without anyone knowing what’s happening. Technical tools like Web bugs and cookies leave behind electronic footprints that retailers and marketers use to compile consumer profiles, often without the knowledge or consent of the shopper. The seemingly endless barrage of news stories about the...