Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Cookies

Steven Heath (Steven_Heath_at_grey.net)
Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:45:27 -0700

• Messages sorted by: [ date ][ thread ][ subject ][ author ]
• Archive Home Page
• Search
• Next message: Alan Ferguson: "Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Cookies - New name"
• Previous message: Bruce Segal: "ONLINE-ADS>> Juno reference in Ad Bytes"

> I personally refuse all cookies - I guess I don't like
> being tracked as I move through sites. I was very
> pleased when Netscape Communicator gave the option to
> refuse all cookies - many sites have ten or twenty
> cookies before you can even see information.

If their server is set to write a cookie then the developer/owner can do
nothing about this until they can get this changed on the server side. Do
not forget, that cookies can be written from the page AND/OR the server.

I am aware of a server side piece of software that tries to write the
cookie 8 times per page and the adminstators of the site running it were
not even
aware of it...

> >From a 'computer geek' standpoint, even though cookies have so many
> >limits
> on them, I do worry that someone will find a way to introduce viruses
> through a cookie (paranoid, yes, but if everyone was out to get you,
> you'd be paranoid too! ;-) Please don't nail me on this - I know all the
> 'safeguards' which are in place. I just can't help thinking that if
> someone created the safeguards, someone else probably can find a way to
> crack them.

Woah, lets slow down the wagon eh?

How cookies operate and what they are have been discussed many times on this
list. If anyone has read these posts or any other well written non cookie
basing article you would know that the 'cookie virus' thing is more than
just paranoria. It is not like cookies have 'safe guards' built it and
thus in theory could be by passed.

A cookie is a simple text entry ina very simple text file on your hard
drive. It is not a binary, it is not executable, it is not a program, it
is not a windows short cut file/link. It is more simple than this email message.

The cookie virus thinking, which I have seen a few times, is like the
'Good Times Virus'. The whole message/idea was fake but yet it was a
vrirus because SO many people around the word sent that message to
thousamds of other people it was just like a little Internet Worm sucking
back SendMail and other SMTP server cycles :-)

Steven Heath
General Manager - Western Division
GreyInteractive Canada

Phone: (604) 687-1001 Email: Steven_Heath_at_grey.net
Web: http://www.grey.net

Canada's only complete Interactive Marketing Agency

----------------------------------------------------------------------
This week's Online Advertising Discussion List sponsor:

Take a stroll down Madison Avenue and see what other planners are up to
Geocities - 312 million page views a month
http://www.geocities.com/MadisonAvenue/

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Online Advertising Discussion List To Unsubscribe send UNSUBSCRIBE
http://www.o-a.com/ to online-ads-request_at_o-a.com

• Archive Home Page
• Search
• Next message: Alan Ferguson: "Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Cookies - New name"
• Previous message: Bruce Segal: "ONLINE-ADS>> Juno reference in Ad Bytes"

With an archive of more than 14,000 postings, since 1996 the Online Advertising Discussion List has been the Internet's leading forum focused on professional discussion of online advertising and online media buying and selling strategies, results, studies, tools, and media coverage. If you wish to join the discussion list, please use this link to sign up on the home page of the Online Advertising Discussion List.