Other Technologies
Database systems such as Oracle run on the back-end of many web servers, which are used to stockpile information about individual user's their preferences, where they come from, and where they go online. Oracle has added in its 9i version warehouse, business intelligence, and clickstream data capture technologies that allow web servers to dynamically manage the content and presentation of a website according to particular users.

A company in Israel known as Manna is producing a new type of software called dynamic interfacing software. Through analyzing clickstream data and recognizing one's IP address (and hence the user's general geographic location and perhaps affiliation with a certain institution or organization) web companies can manipulate a particular user's experience the first time and every time he or she logs onto a site, regardless of their input information. This is a major step in data-warehousing technologies because it disregards that the user may input false information and also accesses clickstream information about a user's surfing outside of a given domain. http://www.zdnet.com/ibizmag/stories/reviews/0,10472,2656511,00.html

Some companies are also using artificial intelligence web technologies that frankly address the user to ask about his/her preferences. Lands End Inc. has recently implemented a system called My Personal Shopper (MPS) that literally asks the consumer "what type of clothing they're looking for, for what use, and what colors and fabrics they like." Through processing this information based on past users and other decision factors, MPS makes "recommendations" to the user as would an in-store employee. This interactive system is probably the most privacy-sensitive type of data-warehousing software because it works directly and straightforwardly with the user. It might be construed as annoying, but at least it's not overly intrusive. Moreover, in the case of Lands End, it certainly has the purpose to gather very specific information about the user for the sake of providing them better customer service.

A company called Buystream has released it's Buystream Merchant version 2.0. This piece of software inserts lines into a customer's webpages to track the user's interaction with each individual site, regardless of domain. It doesn't rely on clickstream or cookie files that exist on the user's hard drive. It also tracks where users came from so a company can know how its banner advertising is working, and from what sites they're getting hits.