Open Jaw

OPINION PLACE also has cookies and I opted out.

bez7

Conversion tracking is currently a very hot topic in the SEO/online marketing world (I work for a leader in the small to mid level SEO marketplace). Our customers are frustrated by conversion rates and without some enhanced cookie our ability to provide our customers the data they want/need to effectively run their online presence is minimized. Equate it to running a brick and mortar store front. You know when someone comes in and then leaves without buying something. You may even notice what they picked up to look at. Then you notice when they come back into the store to buy something, or even just to look again. In the online world the only way to reliably track if someone had been there before, what they looked at, and when they came back to the site is with a cookie. True, there are cases when that data can be used to pervasively monitor your actions and use that against you, but in most cases it’s so a store can present you what you want when you want it and be able to track your steps in their store. Then they can make more realistic changes to their site, based on the preferences of their customers. If my brick and mortar has a display at the front of the store but nothing is even looked at on it I can either move it to the back of the store or even just get rid of it. I need to hvae that same ability in my online storefront.

Now the problem becomes keeping businesses ethical in their use of that data…

goalie

and my thanks as well ^

johnnie.walker

You can download Disconnect. It's quite good.

dgoedken

By "Advanced Cookie" it very well could be the more recent (in the last couple years) use of what are called Flash Cookies. They act much like the above post suggests. They also reside in a DIFFERENT location than if you went to your cookies folder...so by "deleting" them from your browser, etc they still may not be deleted unless they are going to the location where the flash cookie is stored. Most tools/apps do NOT do this.

One, useful, use(reason for) of flash cookies is for referral purchases. Say you go from FT, to amazon via a link/ad and FT gets 5% of your purchase...well, say you don't buy immediately when you click the link from FT. Say you go a week later, but go directly to their website instead of via the FT link. Well, using FCs, they can determine that you actually were referred by FT b/c of said FC. So, "yes, they are evil" if used by the wrong ppl...but also have very valid business applications too


HTH clear it up.

-2 cents

Diabo

CCleaner kills the cookies that get stored outside the usual cookie jar, such as Flash cookies. Make it autorun once or twice a day and the "advanced" cookies are gone.

It's really hard to defend yourself against tracking by browser and font configuration, which the really evil trackers use now: https://panopticlick.eff.org/

If your ISP has moved from IPv4 to IPv6, your network card MAC address is now part of your new IP address. You need an app that spoofs your hardware address to fight that new evil.

If you go online on your phone or tablet and an app or website gets hold of your IMEI, you're screwed. It's really hard to fake an IMEI, and in most countries it's illegal to change your IMEI.

Mystiqz

thanks for the info.