Cookies Anyone?
By Mike Banks Valentine
There is one particular issue that relates specifically to the
web and your surfing, buying and e-mailing habits. You should
know by now that every site you visit can place a "cookie"
on your hardrive which will record a few crumbs of information
about you.
This is harmless enough at first glance when all they seem to
care about is the time, date, length of stay and pages you
visited at their site. But when you know that advertisers that
serve ads from the sites you visit can also track your visit,
link it to other stored data about you gathered at other sites
and finally to any other information they have stored about you,
how do you feel?
This means that the harmless little "session number" or "state
data" gathered about you from every site you've ever visited,
every product you've ever purchased online and every banner
you've ever clicked on is stored in the database of the ad
server and distributed to it's clients!
To learn how to disable cookies on your computer, visit this
DoubleClick page.
Information provided by the largest cookie bakery on the web,
DoubleClick. It is possible to set your browser to the "Do Not
Accept Any Cookies" option. I recommend you try it once, if
only for the enlightenment about how many sources are collecting
information about you. Some web pages will send as many as a
dozen requests for cookies and many web sites tell you flatly
that in order to use their online service "cookies must be
enabled on your browser" to use the site.
It gets tiring and frustrating clicking the "OK" button
in the warning box that appears each time your browser detects
a request to set a cookie on your hard drive, if you've checked
the "notify me" option in preferences.
If you want to get a clearer picture of how cookies can be used
to invade your privacy, I recommend an amazing demonstration of
how you can be followed around the web without your knowledge.
Check out the demo set up by Privacy.net
You'll see how providing information in bits and pieces to
multiple web sites creates a cumulative database on your
travels, habits and preferences online. Prepare to be mildly
miffed or fully outraged, depending on your level of concern
with invasion of privacy.
It is becoming increasingly complex to keep your private
information to yourself. The biggest advertisers online have
created a method which involves cookies which stop new cookies.
You must get yourself a set of "No Cookies For Me" cookies from
a group set up by this online advertising brain trust. Now ya
gotta have a new cookie to avoid getting any more cookies.
No really, I couldn't eat another bite, please! If you'd like to
follow this recipe for avoiding advertiser spying on your surfing
habits, visit the Network Advertising Initiative web site and go
to the OPT OUT page,
which gives you the option to tick boxes to opt out of cookies served by the largest six online ad servers.
- DoubleClick
- Engage
- 24/7 Media
- Matchlogic
- Avenue A
- L90 Inc.
OK, now you're outta there, right? No, not necessarily. You've
opted out, but you use your wifes' computer or you use a
different browser to visit sites that serve the cookies you
don't want, so you have to visit the OPT OUT page again and
check off those boxes for every computer and every browser you
use. This could get a bit tedious!
Most surfers don't know that the browser launched by their
service provider might be different from the built-in browser
launched by their operating system on start-up by the system.
The ISP provided browser is yet another version. Which one are
you using now and on which computer and did you visit the OPT
OUT page with this one?
Fortunately, the NAI has set up a way for you to tell by going
to the verification page, which looks for those opt-out cookies
and verifies that you have them for each of the participating ad
networks.
If you don't, you can go back to the OPT OUT page and get new
OPT OUT cookies. If that still doesn't work, you can go complain
to someone set up to police the activity of these cookie
monsters. Guess who arranged for this compliance service? Those
same advertisers. HMMMM. Well it's better than nothing. Just
visit the Arthur Anderson site.
Now you've filed a complaint and you can feel all better about
it right? Well only if they get a volume of complaints that
suggests a "significant" problem has occurred based on the
number of complaints filed, then they'll conduct an
investigation. Man that's a relief! I wonder if those ad
networks will keep paying these guys to tell them when they've
gotten a significant number of complaints? I wonder how much
they pay for this service and who monitors the people they are
paying to tell them what they'd like to hear? They'd probably
stop paying me if I played this role, because I'd be telling
them every time a single complaint was lodged.
No thank you, I couldn't eat another bite!
About The Author
Article by Mike Banks Valentine.
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