“Information that users enter into certain financial calculators
at Intuit’s Quicken Web site has been seeping out to advertisers,
but the company jumped quickly to plug the hole.”
“The leakage was discovered by Richard Smith, an increasingly
famous Internet security consultant, who said the problem is not
limited to Intuit but appears at sites across the Web. So far, he
has noticed similar problems at nearly 15 sites, including
Travelocity.com and Buy.com. In October, Smith alerted Alta Vista
that it was sending people’s home addresses to DoubleClick, an
Internet advertising firm.”
“The leaks occur when a design glitch allows information
typed into forms on the Web to be sent accidentally to companies
that provide banner advertisements to sites on the Internet. Once
again, DoubleClick finds itself at the center of the privacy
storm.”
” ‘Because of its reach, DoubleClick seems to be the main
recipient of this information,’ said Smith. ‘What troubles me is
the fact that DoubleClick should notice this problem and be more
proactive about getting sites to fix it.’ “