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NONE: Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Ad Bytes -- Whose hand is that in the cookie jar?
Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Ad Bytes -- Whose hand is that in the cookie jar?
Bob Stewart (rstewart_at_mars.superlink.net)
Tue, 15 Apr 1997 12:49:41 -0400
At 12:02 PM 4/15/97 -0400, Oliver Willis wrote:
>
>I was with you on this point until recently when I found out what
>DoubleClick is capable of. Since all their ads come from one server, anytime
>you go from one of their affiliates to another, the same computer is
>tracking your surfing habits. You could go from Dilbert to AltaVista to
>Macromedia and they'd know its you all the time, as they're all DoubleClick
>affiliates. On enough sites, they'd have a pretty detailed of Joe Q. Public.
First, what the author said is, "...cookies are ominous strings of random
numbers that follow [users] from site to site." She clearly is implying
that one site can read another's cookies. This is simply not true.
In the case of Doubleclick, the ONLY thing they are getting is information
on where a certain user has gone amongst their advertisers. They have no
other information about this user, no name, no email address, etc. All they
have is info on a LOT of Joe Q. Publics.
The only situation where there seems to be anything close to a real privacy
issue is when a site requires user registration and uses cookies to track
users' movements within the site. But it's hard to see how someone willing
to fill out a registration could reasonably expect their Web usage to
remain anonymous, and its pretty simple to avoid this tracking--just don't
register.
Bob Stewart
The Virtual Mirror - http://www.vmirror.com
138 Montgomery St., #1M
Highland Park, NJ 08904
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