This is where I have been investigating so I can bring more information to not only myself but my customers. I start with this article:
We gets a lot of traffic from people who would
like to identify individual website visitors. Search phrases such as
“identify website visitors” and “track individual web site visitors”
bring traffic to us on a daily basis. We find that many people are
searching for a solution that will tell them the email addresses (or
names & phone numbers) of each person that visits their website.
This post is the first in a series that will explain exactly what is
and is not possible when it comes to identifying and tracking visitors
to your website. Having personally built popular software for
identifying website visitors I have at least one truckload of experience
in this area, maybe more depending on the size of your truck.
What’s Not Possible
A universal truth: No legitimate software or service in
existence can identify the names, phone numbers or email addresses of
each visitor to your website. I know, I know. That sucks. Very
disappointing. But that’s absolutely the way it is. Let me show you why
this is the case.
Think about your computer. Where in it would you find your
email address? How about your name and phone number? The first place
that comes to mind is your email program like Outlook or Entourage.
Another place where your name may be found is in the operating system
itself. You may also have look in the various documents you’ve
created. Here’s the deal: The code used to build web pages is not technologically capable
of accessing information stored in these places. Web browsers like
Internet Explorer, Firefox & Safari are specifically designed to not
allow access to the information stored in other programs. You can’t
build a web page that sorts through Outlook contacts, Word documents or
operating system settings without the user’s permission. It’s not only a
question of ethics, it’s also just not possible without tricking the
user into downloading something sneaky.
“But what about cookies?” I hear someone asking. No, cookies cannot
provide this kind of information either. Many people have the mistaken
impression that they can but they cannot. Web developers use cookies to
store pieces of information they already know. Cookies cannot discover new information, they can only store known information.
That is the bottom line. End of story. But wait…
There is one kind of program that’s capable of digging around in your
address book or elsewhere to find email addresses and other contact
information. It’s called spyware (I’m sure you noticed that I said no legitimate
software can identify each visitor to your website). Spyware can probe
various areas of a computer and “phone home” with all the dirt it digs
up. You won’t find anyone openly selling this kind of software because
it is only used by criminals and spammers (if there’s really a
difference there). But alas, even spyware has its limitations. In
order to use spyware to get at sensitive information you first have to
trick someone into installing it on their computer. Your mileage may
vary, but I’m not predicting success in identifying all of your website
visitors in this manner.
So what is possible when trying to identify anonymous website visitors? Next post on this coming soon.
Joe R
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