Unsavoury web tracking, part 1

Here's a <sarcasm>nice</sarcasm> tracker revealed by the excellent Firefox plugin Ghostery. According to the forum at nodpi.org, this tracker was noticed by a poster on Guardian Unlimited, and it tracks when people highlight and/or copy text, and phones home (presumably to the company HQ in Canada) this information tied to your IP address.

Apparently the noscript Firefox plugin will block it (as does Ghostery). Ghostery says this about Tynt Tracer:

How they describe themselves:

"What does Tracer do? Tracer secretly tracks when users copy content from your web site and automatically adds a link back to the original page when your content is pasted. So, why do I need Tracer? Tracer is a brand new way to:

* Generate more visits and page views
* Get credit when content is copied from your site
* Measure and understand user engagement * Improve your search engine ranking"

Who uses Tynt Tracer?   The nodpi forum post is about The Daily Mail's website. Ghostery says it's found on over 1000 websites, and lists five (not including the Daily Mail, but several appear to be news services).  I visited the TYNT privacy policy page.  It contains a bunch of stuff related to customers (e.g. the information TYNT will hold related to their clients), but at the end is this mysterious bit:

Information obtained by virtue of your visiting TYNT web sites

When you use TYNT Products, we will collect the following information:

1. The Internet domain and IP address from which you access the TYNT Products;
2. The type of browser and operating system used to access the TYNT Products;
3. Screen resolution of your monitor;
4. The date and time you access the TYNT Products;
5. The page you are visiting with the TYNT Products;
6. If you linked to a TYNT web site from another referring web site, the address of that web site.

By using the TYNT Products, you are consenting to have your personal data transferred to and processed both within and without the United States of America

By using the TYNT website, you agree to the preceding uses of your information in this way by TYNT.

I don't know whether this section refers to individuals who visit websites using Tynt Tracer - if so, this can hardly refer to actual consent, surely?  Incidentally, I have this tracker blocked by Ghostery - apparently text cut and pasted from sites using Tynt Tracer should be reproted, and also accompanied with an originating URL.  A fate I seem to have escaped.