Is somebody observing what we do in The Net?

Before listening the broadcast "Tracking the trackers," I did not know anything about cyber tracking, which is the act of following internet users´s behaviour so that some web sites related to big companies are able to create a profile of our preferences or our consumer habits.

Immediately after that, I understood everything: the sudden presence of spam in my email account and the huge amount of advertisements in the web sites that I usually visit. 

I also realized that we are completely vulnerable to the trackers since as me, there are lots of people who ignore that they are been cyber spied. Fortunately, technology  and computing science is working in our favour launching special anti-spam software and other specialized tools like the Mozilla add-on Collusion that makes us aware of the existence of this new trend in spying. 

On the other, in legal terms, some modifications have been made to the laws that regulate this issue. Now, for example, in countries like Britain users should be informed that they have been tracked and asked for their consent before someone could see their surfing record.

In this sense, I hope more and more nations join to this initiative of establishing certain norms for navigation monitoring since most of the time internet consumers found that their right for privacy have been violated, and they cannot complain about it.

What is your opinion about this topic? do you consider cyber tracking as an illegal activity?  or are we exaggerating in our concerns?