Because today, 20 June, 2000, I received the following e-mail message from the Privacy Officer for Comet Systems I am removing the warning and ask you to read the message and it's associated links to understand any privacy issues for which you might have concern.
Lastly, the Comet Cursors are a very nice addition to your webpages and offers your visitors the opportunity to view your pages on which you might include a theme.
Dear Webmaster-
Forgive me for addressing you so impersonally, but I was unable to find your name on your page, only your email address. First off, thanks so much for using Comet Cursors, I really hope that you are enjoying them. I noticed that on your site you have posted a warning about the Comet Cursor, and a copy of the article written by Ted Bridis of the AP. Unfortunately we were never contacted before this article was printed, and it therefore contains many inacurracies and mischaracterizations of our information practices. Once we explained what was really occurring, many of the publications which picked up this story from the AP, including the Christian Science Monitor, Industry Standard, ABC News, and Business Week, realized their mistake and issued retractions or corrections. Here are some links to some of those articles:
12/6/99 Industry Standard, "Privacy Story Moves Like a Comet"
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,8100,00.html"
12/9/99 Christian Science Monitor, "Media Didn't Give Comet Systems a Chance to Explain"
http://www.csmonitor.com/atcsmonitor/cybercoverage/bandwidth/p-120999cursor
2.html.
12/19/99 ABC News.com, Correction "Is Big Brother Watching You, Or Are You Just Paranoid?"
http://more.abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/dailynews/comet991217.html
1/10/00 Business Week, "On the Web, It's 1984" (now contains
retraction/correction)
http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_02/c3663188.htm">http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_02/c3663188.htm
*Retraction: 1/24/00 Business Week, Retraction in Letters to the Editor http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_04/c3665038.htm
There are additional retractions and corrections that appear in several other publications but there are not online copies available at this time. Comet Systems takes its responsibility towards user privacy very seriously. In fact, we are committed not only to our users' privacy but to their anonymity. As I'm sure you know in the course of downloading the Comet Cursor, you are never asked to provide your name or email address or any other personally identifiable information. This makes Comet different from most other software companies, who routinely ask for names and email addresses. Because we do not handle any personally identifiable information, people who use the Comet Cursor remain anonymous. We understand that many people are concerned about ad networks profiling and tracking people's online surfing habits. Comet Systems doesn't profile Comet
Cursor users or track user habits, and never has. Comet Systems does not sell or share any information about Comet Cursor users with third parties. All we do is count the numbers of cursors displayed at our partner sites in an anonymous fashion. Please feel free to check out our privacy policy at:
http://www.cometsystems.com/help/privacy.shtml
I hope that you will reconsider the warning that you have posted in light of these facts. Perhaps you could post a link to our privacy policy instead. If have any further questions regarding this matter please do not hesitate to contact me.
Thanks so much for your time,
-Sarah MacArthur
Privacy Officer
Comet Systems
143 Varick Street
New York, NY 10013
Ph: 212-231-2000
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