Sgt Quote...
"There IS no question as to whether they're 'ethical' or not. They are NOT...and, by attempting to d/l something onto my system without my specific permission (notwithstanding my own 'prompters' to alert me), I would call them blatant liars. I do not appreciate being manipulated"
I don't disagree with much of what you are saying.But,
Avenue is a relatively harmless tracker that helps many sites including this one defer costs.This is not a bad thing.
There is only a small cookie on your machine , the site you visit merely can check who you are, then prepare some items for you plus the info they want. eg. auto logon .etc.
If you are adamant about your privacy use an annonymous surfing software,because the bottomline is these things are here to stay.Some good some bad.I donot worry about the good ones.
I don't know if this is the right forum for this discussion,and I invite you to start a thread in the general discussion forum.