Study Finds Popular Websites Share User Info, E-Mail Addresses Despite Privacy Promises

The integrity of online privacy always feels wobbly. Assertions that your data is "anonymous" sounds like the cliched line "I'll respect you in the morning." Little wonder data gold miners, such as Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, can publicly maintain that privacy is a quaint, largely obsolete concept.

However, in this era of the data-driven nightmare, it's tough to obtain facts to substantiate anecdotal evidence or intuitive "hunches" about online privacy invasion. That's why a recent Stanford University study on the topic offers some useful, disturbing, and frankly unsurprising, findings.

The study was released at an online privacy forum in Washington today, and was covered by the San Jose Mercury News.

Among the sites noted in the study were Home Depot, NBC's main site, and Bleacher Report. Are you surprised that I didn't hot link or label those sites for my post?