Possible Spyware on news.bbc.co.uk?

Hi,
Im running IE 6.0 on a Win2K box, using JDK1.4.0 with the Java Console enabled. If I set the trace level to 5 and then connect to the following URL:
http://news.bbc.co.uk
The console shows the following:

When I go to www.redsheriff.com/privacy.htm, Im told that the company collects information such as browser usage, OS, date and time of visit. The privacy statement then goes on to state that no email or personal information is collected.
What concerns me is that news.bbc.co.uk does not advertise the fact that they are collecting information about me, regardless of what that might be.
At this point in time I cannot 100% be sure that the applet was downloaded from news.bbc.co.uk, however I was wondering if fellow Javaranchers out there could confirm or refute my findings.
Cheers,
Mark

Related SpyWare info:
http://membrane.com/security/secure/Microsoft_Is_Unscrupulous.html
[expletive deleted]

Sigh,
Consider this thread "hijacked". :roll:
Anyway has anyone been able to reproduce what I found whilst visiting news.bbc.co.uk?
Cheers,
Mark

Yes. This is what my Console lists.
Unregistered modality listener Doing a join...
Sending events to applet.
STOP Opening http://server-uk.imrworldwide.com/cgi-bin/demorecord
Connecting http://server-uk.imrworldwide.com/cgi-bin/demorecord with no proxy
Connecting http://server-uk.imrworldwide.com/cgi-bin/demorecord with cookie "IMRID=PI9rX9S7zZcAAEb6F2M"
Removed trace listener: sun.plugin.ocx.ActiveXAppletViewer[Measure,0,0,1x2,invalid,layout=java.awt.BorderLayout]
Sending events to applet.
DESTROY Sending events to applet.
DISPOSE Sending events to applet.
QUIT Record Sent
Done with join ...
Finding information...
Releasing classloader: sun.plugin.ClassLoaderInfo@479809, refcount=0
Caching classloader: sun.plugin.ClassLoaderInfo@479809
Current classloader cache size: 3 Done...
Registered modality listener Referencing classloader: sun.plugin.ClassLoaderInfo@479809, refcount=1
Added trace listener: sun.plugin.ocx.ActiveXAppletViewer[Measure,0,0,1x2,layout=java.awt.BorderLayout]
Sending events to applet.
LOAD Sending events to applet.
INIT Sending events to applet.
START Determine if the applet requests to install any JAR Jar cache option: null
Jar archive(s): null
Jar cache version(s): null Applet Installation finished.
----------- RedSheriff Measurement -----------
Privacy: http://www.redsheriff.com/privacy.htm
Ashok.
(I thought you would notice that 'Also' in my previous post)
[ March 13, 2002: Message edited by: J Ash ]

"Most" web pages keep track of stuff like that from each visitor to the page. What is the big difference here?

JR does this, last I looked. The traffic is to extreme.com.
A good firewall, properly configured, can stop most if not all trafic like it.
But then, what would you miss??
G.

Cindy,
Im not sure, but by law I think in the UK companies have to declare what information is being collected on you and the methods that allow this collection.
Now the BBC do have a privacy declaration desribing the use of cookies to collect information, but they havent mentioned applets.
Mark

And just how does the UK enforce that on sites that are not located in the UK?? :roll:
I would venture to say the bulk of commercial and informational sites track they type of OS and Browser accessing the site, as well as the IPs and time of access so that they can make informed decisions as to how to SUPPORT the site.
If you don't know what tools your users are using and where they are located you will not have a clue as to what your strategic direction should be. If you don't know your load patterns you can not make future upgrade decisions.