Computerworld - Internet advertisers to develop standard for exchanging customer profiles. The standard, called Customer Profile Exchange, or CPEX, would combine online and off-line data about customers, such as information gleaned from catalog sales, into one format. Combining the information would give online retailers an easy way to collect information about customers' backgrounds and preferences.

Forbes (11-29-99 issue date) - Mind Readers. So what is its "single greatest asset," in the view of Yahoo President Jeffrey Mallet? The wealth of data it gathers on 80 million customers, he says--their names, their preferences on-line and details on which merchants they visit and what they buy.

Forbes (11-29-99 issue date) - On the Web, No One Is Anonymous . Maybe it's no big deal if a Fidelity pitch shows up in your mailbox after you have hung out at thestreet.com. The problem is, where will it stop?

Forbes (11-29-99 issue date) Cover Story The End of Privacy. Our reporter dared a private eye to dig up dirt on him. The results are terrifying to anybody who worries about prying eyes or credit card scamsters. What can you do to protect yourself?

Federal Computer Week - Pentagon labels computer morphing a war crime. A Defense Department study on how international law could be applied to the military's use of information operations (IO) and computer network attack concludes that though there are no show stoppers preventing the Department's use of such tactics in war, communicating false computer-generated images would be a war crime.

Slashdot | Articles | Pentagon Says Improper Image Morphing is War Crime.

Independent(U.K.) | News - This is just between us (and the spies). The US National Security Agency has patented a new technology for monitoring millions of telephone calls, so watch out, it's now even easier for the spooks to eavesdrop on your conversations

Slashdot | Articles | NSA has Patented New Eavesdropping Technology.

GnuPG - The GNU Privacy Guard. GnuPG is a complete and free replacement for PGP. Because it does not use IDEA or RSA it can be used without any restrictions. GnuPG is a RFC2440 (OpenPGP) compliant application.

Slashdot | Articles | German Government donates 250,000 DM to GNU Privacy Guard.

Seattle Times: Web bugs nibbling at computer privacy.

In a scramble to monitor the behavior of consumers online, marketing companies on the World Wide Web have begun deploying a virtually invisible tool that records activity at a site and reports the details to advertisers and others.

Many computer users are already familiar with "cookies" - another simple sort of code that serves as a unique identifier at a Web site. Web bugs work in tandem with cookies to greatly enhance the ability of outside observers to track and analyze activity, most often without a computer user's knowledge.

PCWEEK Webcast presents COMDEX'99.

ZDTV | Comdex Video and Audio Schedule.

New York Times - free registration required Setback for a Web Site in Copyright Case.

In a case that pits the push by newspapers for online revenues against the free-for-all nature of cyberspace debate, a federal judge here says she intends to rebuff the assertion of a conservative Web forum that it has a right to post articles from two newspapers to foster discussion.

They went a little to far. They didn't just have links and pull quotes. They pulled the entire article and included it on their site.