[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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