[LINK] You Deleted Your Cookies? Think Again (more on Flash)

Ivan Trundle ivan at itrundle.com
Tue Aug 11 18:50:20 AEST 2009


Since the topic of Flash resurfaced...

(and this isn't new, either)

More than half of the internet’s top websites use a little known  
capability of Adobe’s Flash plugin to track users and store  
information about them, but only four of them mention the so-called  
Flash Cookies in their privacy policies, UC Berkeley researchers  
reported Monday.

Unlike traditional browser cookies, Flash cookies are relatively  
unknown to web users, and they are not controlled through the cookie  
privacy controls in a browser. That means even if a user thinks they  
have cleared their computer of tracking objects, they most likely have  
not.

What’s even sneakier?

Several services even use the surreptitious data storage to reinstate  
traditional cookies that a user deleted, which is called ‘re-spawning’  
in homage to video games where zombies come back to life even after  
being “killed,” the report found. So even if a user gets rid of a  
website’s tracking cookie, that cookie’s unique ID will be assigned  
back to a new cookie again using the Flash data as the “backup.”

(etc)

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/08/you-deleted-your-cookies-think-again/

iT


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