PRIVACY 2000 IN WEB WE TRUST? (cover story)

Examines privacy abuses on the Internet. Battle over Internet users in the personal data; Examples of privacy lawsuits in the United States, including the suit against RealNetworks by Jeffrey Wilens; Companies that create online profiles of consumers, including DoubleClick; Comments from privacy advocate Richard Smith; How the Internet has made consumer profiling easier; Role of Truste, a organization that oversees privacy policies for Web sites. INSETS: E-COMMERCE'S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET;THEY KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU, by Tom Spring;THE EYES OF RICHARD SMITH;SHOULD YOU TRUST TRUSTE?, by Eric Dahl