When did internet companies begin tracking users?

[Crichax]

From your experiences, when did you think that this whole "tracking" controversy (over companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, and etc) started? The early 2010s? The early 2000s? Or even farther back?

 

[Colmerry]

Web 2.0 has always been like that. I would say around early-mid 2000s is when it really started, but there are definitely cases before that.

 

[SmileyTimeDayCare]

From my earliest days using Prodigy I assumed everything I did was being tracked.

 

[AF 802]

Always. You thought you were private?

NSA was a Cold War-era agency. No way they weren't monitoring from the beginning.

 

[MediocreMilt]

As soon as they figured out that they could.

I'm sure it goes back before MySpace, nevermind Facebook.

 

[Chichan]

I agree with @Give Her The D since the inception of government agencies used to root out espionage I'm sure they have always been bugging us. It would not be surprising if the FBI and CIA colluded to spy on the American populace. The patriot act itself is basically the government using people's fear of terroroism/towel heads to spy on them. I doubt anyone voted for that shit either.

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

Web 2.0 has always been like that. I would say around early-mid 2000s is when it really started, but there are definitely cases before that.

And those sneaky fuckers decided to call the means used to track something cute like "cookies".

 

[Jet Fuel Johnny]

Back when they logged the phone numbers of people who called into BBS's, especially the freak or cracker ones.

It's always been monitored by the government.

Companies started logging and trying to get your data at about late 1995, when most people had Win-95, which would auto-accept packet files with Windows Explorer (one of Netscapes big draws what it anonymized your brousing). That let then gather shit up, from emails to the sites you went to. eBay would track what you browsed and sell the data to companies along with your email address. By 1997 if you bought two or three items off eBay you could be sure that you'd get a shitload of spam emails.

So, it's always been logged by the government and tracked by companies.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

The answer should be "as soon as they figured out how to do it".

There's some irony in how much of the actual internet infrastructure is based on trust. Just hoping that no one does anything bad. Wannacry, specter, exploits, people and companies prepare for those and try to lessen any damage they can do.
But think about this, China is a mass surveillance state, that includes all internet traffic in and passing through China. Not long ago China routed international traffic through their own telecom operators, not using a bug, hack or exploit, it's a feature. It is just assumed that no one would do something malicious like that.

The researchers claim China Telecom has essentially been doing the same again – abusing BGP to route international Net traffic via its POPs, of which it has eight located in the US and two in Canada.

These included months of ‘hijacking’ routes from Canada to Korea in 2016, which saw traffic take longer detours into China before completing its journey.

Or the traffic from the US to a bank in Milan, Italy which was diverted via China Telecom POPs in a way that only stood out because it never arrived.

While one may argue such attacks can always be explained by ‘normal’ BGP behavior, these, in particular, suggest malicious intent, precisely because of their unusual transit characteristics – namely the lengthened routes and the abnormal durations.

China hijacking internet traffic using BGP, claim researchers

Researchers claim that unusual BGP routing changes are actually man-in-the-middle surveillance.

nakedsecurity.sophos.com