Modern society is essentially a milieu where we are constantly being watched. To say that we are being spied on constantly is no exaggeration. After all, there must be a hundred and one cameras capturing and monitoring our actions each day rang
ing from purchases at convenience stores to the time spent on the daily commute or drive on the freeway. Everything we use regularly leaves some sort of electronic imprint and can potentially be monitored by someone somewhere. This applies to telecommunications and even to our usage of the varied services on the Internet.
Web monitoring is one of those activities that might be considered spying. Web monitoring spies on machines and technology, but it also spies on human activity. Web monitoring is considered an essential feature of business operations when an enterprise has a strong online presence or offers goods and services for sale on the Internet. With internal web monitoring, the focus of the spying is the reliability and function of the machines that keep a web site up and running. It ensures that the administrator is notified immediately of any technical glitches that may occur, from power outages to crashed servers. The quick notification allows the administrator to rectify the problem as soon as possible. This kind of web monitoring is the reason why your favorite sites can remain up all day, every day, available whenever you feel the need to resort to them.
With external web monitoring, the spying is being carried out on clients or end users. There are several programs in existence that allow some form of passive monitoring. That means that it is now possible to know how much time individual users spend on a particular website and what he or she does while logged on. It’s also possible to take a look at the way people react to changes on a site or in web applications that they constantly use. While external monitoring does check up on your behavior on a particular site, you won’t know that it’s at work. This kind of web monitoring passively collects data without affecting operations on the site.
When you really think about it, there’s something disturbing about the fact that someone somewhere knows what we’re doing. But that’s the nature of the Internet. Connectivity guarantees exposure . Web monitoring might be spying, but it’s spying that’s often carried out in the name of improving customer service and maximizing profits.
