Research topic proposal

I intend to do a research paper on privacy. That may sound vague, which it is. Specifically, I’m going to investigate and write about being tracked online. This may sound like a topic that everyone knows about, but we’ve really only known about it in recent years. I want to research how long these methods have been in place for, before the more recent public awareness of tracking. Everyone’s allways had an IP address, which says where you are, and cookies (files which contain information about a site’s history) have been practiced since the early days of the “remember me” check box at a login screen. So which sites have been using it the way that we’re now aware of, before we knew of such a thing? And how long ago has it been? I’m going to find out.