Anita Ramasastry writes an article called : Third Party Data Monitoring and Collection on the Internet: Is it Illegal Wiretapping? on the excellent Findlaw website. Interesting look at the Pharmatrack case where the US Court of Appeals for the 1st circuit suggested such data collection might breach the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA). It would be quite funny if a law that old jumped up to bite the personal data trawlers and direct marketers of this world. I wonder if it was considered in the Toysmart (2000-2001) or DoubleClick (1999-2001) cases.