Hi bob3160,
You are so right and therefore one should have this knowledge always at the back of one's head.
If you want something known to the end of days, well just publish it on the Interwebs.
Everything is logged, stored, monitored, tracked and the data land on someone's desk to-night,
hopefully anonymous, but that is only what we can hope for, we got no guarantees for that.
Be it an ad-seller, a marketeer, a harvester, a hacker, cyber-criminal or an automated good or ill bot.
See how many features avast needs now to keep us relatively secure and still we should not venture out into Internet's dark alleys,
where cyber-crimnal generals want to contact us via Skype and scammers lure around every corner to stab us onto their malcoded forks.
Come to these here forums and learn from the best how to avoid malcode and how to best protect against it
(and how to recover from infections).
Hanging out here I have learned to digest code like the best of connoisseurs and when the odor of malcode fills the air,
it's stenchy taste hangs on my palate while alerts pop-up in my malcode scan results.
Realize all this and enjoy your secure browsing,
polonus