Am I being Tracked?

[Copycats]

I bought an application from a software company's website. I gave out my name and email address during the process. The activation code was sent to me by email.

The product is very legit. I downloaded the portable version (so I didn't have to install it) and put it on my external drive, then I activated it when running it for the first time (30-day trial if I didn't activate). Everything has been running great. Then I went to the website to send an email to their customer support. Surprisingly, I found my name and email address were auto filled on the contact page. I was amazed because cookies are disabled on my browser (Google Chrome).

I figured my email address and name must be stored on the company's database server, but the question is how the web server identifies me and my browser? Through my IP address? Is there a possibility that the software installed something on my computer? I checked the download for viruses before running it and it was clean. Also the real-time protection was on so the anti-virus would have raised a flag if anything malicious was being installed.

Any ideas? Thanks!

 

[ryang]

It depends on how you arrived at the website. Did you use a menu or button from within the application? Those could have a flag in the URL that loads your customer info into the contact page. Check for any new extensions or addons in your browser, but I highly doubt they have "tracking" software installed.

 

[Snufykat]

Chrome has an auto complete "feature". I do not think it goes by just cookies, not sure though.

 

[Daeity]

Chrome has an auto complete "feature". I do not think it goes by just cookies, not sure though.

it has both, the auto-fill feature is used when it detects a form to fill out. Happens to me all the time.
You can disable/delete the info by going: Chrome control -> Settings -> advanced settings (at the bottom) -> uncheck auto-fill
And from there you can manage the auto-fill data

 

[Copycats]

it has both, the auto-fill feature is used when it detects a form to fill out. Happens to me all the time.
You can disable/delete the info by going: Chrome control -> Settings -> advanced settings (at the bottom) -> uncheck auto-fill
And from there you can manage the auto-fill data

Not the autofill feature since it was the first time I visited that page and I had never filled the contact form before. And yet, the form was auto filled with my email address and name. I also checked the page source and I'm pretty sure the page is generated by server scripting and it's probably php. But thanks for trying to help!

 

[Copycats]

It depends on how you arrived at the website. Did you use a menu or button from within the application? Those could have a flag in the URL that loads your customer info into the contact page. Check for any new extensions or addons in your browser, but I highly doubt they have "tracking" software installed.

No new addons are detected or extensions. I assume Native Client came with the original Chrome install.

Yes, there is a sub-menu on the page and a contact support link is in the menu.

What you said all makes sense to me ; but how the flag could be set if cookies are disabled?

Interesting!

I doubt they have installed anything too, but could it be part of the application itself?

 

[Innocence]

Some auto-fill is based on the actual table/field name IIRC. Not necessarily the website.

 

[ryang]

The flag wouldn't require a cookie, it is a server side function that would load your contact info from their server.

 

[Innocence]

The flag wouldn't require a cookie, it is a server side function that would load your contact info from their server.

I somehow doubt a public website would let you peruse their customer list just by typing in random letters.....