The King of Pop, Michael Jackson had a hit song called “Somebody’s Watching Me”. The King felt that somebody was watching him every minute, every where he went, and everything he did. On the web somebody is watching you is all the time.

So who is watching you? According to a recent Wall Street Journal investigation the following sites were found to be the worst offenders.

The business of spying on consumers is one of the fastest growing sectors on the web.

Sophisticated software called a “beacon” are being used to capture what people are typing on a website, their comments on movies, their interest in such as in parenting and pregnancy. The data is packaged into profiles about individuals, without determining a person’s name, and sold companies seeking customers for as little as $1 for a thousand individuals.

The investigation found that, “The nation’s 50 top websites on average installed 64 pieces of tracking technology onto the computers of visitors, usually with no warning. A dozen sites each installed more than a hundred.”

The racking technology has gotten smarter and more intrusive. Monitoring used to be limited mainly to “cookie” files that record websites people visit. But the investigation found new tools that scan in real time what people are doing on a Web page, then instantly assess location, income, shopping interests and even medical conditions. Some tools surreptitiously re-spawn themselves even after users try to delete them.

Advertisers are paying premiums for this type of data as it enables them to highly target their advertising as opposed to buying ads on a web page. I recommend reading the original article as it has many gems.