What kind of information does a web beacon retrieve?
A
web beacon can pass along information such as: the
IP address of the
computer you are using when you view the beacon, the time of day that the beacon was viewed, the lengh of time you viewed it, and it can also set cookies.
How do I know if there is a web beacon on a given website? The number one way to tell if a site has a web beacon is to look at its
source code (done by right clicking on the webpage and choosing "
View Source" from the menu). If the source code contains IMG
tags that load from a different
server than the rest of the site does, then it contains a beacon.
How do I get rid of it?If you turn off your
cookies, a beacon can't track you. You have to do this when you open your
browser. If you decide to use a different computer to access the site, then you have to turn off the cookies on that one as well. The beacon is still there, but it will only account for an
anonymous user. It won't get any of the aforementioned
information from you.