s to place tracking software at their sites. Another pressure on these web site owners is competition from other sites for advertising dollars. Giants such as Facebook and Google face competition for advertising revenue generated on mobile devices as well as from broadband, landline-connected devices. Mobile devices based on Google's Android operating system and search software com- pete for advertising revenue with mobile devices that use Microsoft's operating system and its search application, Bing. This competition for advertising dollars motivates site owners to allow advertisers to use tracking software and other tools to enhance the revenue-generating value of their sites. The Internet Privacy threats exist from additional sources. E-commerce sites compile massive databases of past purchasing information that can potentially be made available to advertising partners. One way purchasing histories are used is to target people with ads based on past purchases. Amazon might target e-mail campaigns with messages about photography equipment to people who have purchased books or equipment related to photography. Google and Yahoo! as well as other companies provide free e-mail. Some advertisers place brief text ads at the end of these messages, based on keywords within messages. They state that they do not actually read the content in these messages. However, the potential for abuse is there. The Stricter European Privacy Rules The European Union, currently composed of 27 countries, has more-stringent rules governing Internet privacy than does the United States. It has mandated that each coun- try must enact laws requiring web sites to offer visitors the choice of opting in before allowing the site to gather information about them. Thus, if a person does not explicitly agree, the web site is prohibited from gathering any information. In addition to warning users about privacy risks, web sites must not use behavioral marketing to target advertising based on a visitor's race, religion, or other such cat- egories. Fur