Study: popular websites leak user information.

• Position: WEB STUDY - Brief article

As many as 61% of high-traffic websites routinely share information, such as username or user ID, with other sites, according to a study by Stanford University's computer security lab.

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The survey found that half of the 185 popular websites studied track usernames and IDs and then share them with other sites. Google, Facebook, comScore, and Quantcast were among the top recipients of user. name and ID information, according to the study.

Study author Jonathan Mayer created accounts for sites and then tracked where the information was sent. He found that Photobucket sent his username to 31 other sites, NBC sent his e-mail to seven other organizations, and his name and e-mail address were sent to 13 different organizations when he viewed a local ad on HomeDepot.com.

The survey has spurred new initiatives for "do-not-track" rules. The...