Trilight Zone

[digital8]

Profiling (also known as "tracking") is a process whereby several events, each attributable to a single originating entity, are assembled and analysed in order to gain information, especially patterns of activity, about the originating entity. On the Internet, certain organizations employ profiling of people's web browsing, collecting the URLs of sites visited. The resulting profiles may or may not be connected (or connectable) with information that personally identifies the people who did the browsing.

This practice is legitimately used, for example, by some web marketing organizations in order to create profiles of 'typical Internet users'. Such profiles, which describe average trends of large groups of Internet users rather than actual individuals, can then be used for market analysis. Although the aggregate data is not a privacy violation, some people believe that the initial profiling is.

Profiling becomes a more contentious privacy issue, on the other hand, when the profile of an individual is connected with personally-identifiable information of the individual.

Governments and organizations may set up websites with controversial topics to attract and track unwary people. This is potentially dangerous for individuals.