A question regarding php and GD?

[DefecTalisman]

What is the legall status of collecting anonimous info through a GD image.

eg: My sig is a dynamic image that at the moment only increments a number and displays it. In theory it could collect info such as the refferer, IP, host name and so on.

Is this allowed, I mean web pages do this whithout people being directly informed?

[The_Magistrate]

From what I understand about privacy laws, is that this information is solely between the user and the server. IP address, hostname, browser version are all information that is sent to the server when a user requests a page. There is an unwritten agreement that this information is required during the transaction.

By intercepting this information and collecting it, you could get yourself into some hot water legally. Imagine you start collecting these IP addresses in a database, and someone penetrates this setup and obtains this information. What would you do if they used this information maliciously, and the users came to you about releasing their information?

The best course of action is to err on the side of caution and not do it.

[DefecTalisman]

Ok, cool.

But now I must be allowed to keep a log of referers, date/time, browser type and some form of identification? Its not like I am collecting the info for any other purpose than creating statistics.

If we were to apply the fact that having a database of people is risky then how could the web opperate?