NYT: Spyware Heats Up the Debate Over Cookies

[DeepModem Mom]

Spyware Heats Up the Debate Over Cookies
By BOB TEDESCHI
Published: August 15, 2005


INTERNET users are taking back control of their computers, and online marketers and publishers are not pleased with the results. But they don't quite know what to do about their conundrum - if it is a conundrum, since they can't even agree on that.

Until recently, Internet businesses could track their users freely, using what are known as cookies, tiny text files they embed on the user's hard drive. Now, with the proliferation of antispyware programs that can delete unwanted cookies, they often cannot tell who has been to their Web site before or what they have seen. And this erosion of control over a tool for gaining insight into consumer behavior has many of them fretting.

"Cookies are critical from a business perspective," said Lorraine Ross, vice president for sales at USAToday.com. "They help us do things like track our profitability per unique visitor, for instance. But if you don't know how many people are coming in, you don't really have a handle on whether your profitability is improving or not."

It isn't necessarily just corporate America that is threatened by the anticookie fervor, Ms. Ross said - the deleters stand to suffer, too. For example, cookies help a computer limit how many times a user sees annoying ads like a floating, animated message. Such "frequency caps," to use industry parlance, are common among publishers. "So cookies are a really good thing for managing the user's experience," she said.

Last year, though, Ms. Ross said executives at the company debated how effective their frequency limits were, since a growing number of Internet users were deleting cookies and possibly seeing lots of animated ads....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/15/business/media/15adcol.html

[BlueEyedSon]

1. My cookies have been set "off" for years.

First manually, then with CookiePal, now FireFox (recommended!)....

[ixion]

2. more importantly, cookies are important from a programmatic perspective

and the fact the businesses have ABUSED that to a point where many people don't allow cookies anymore really pisses me off. :grr:

[Ezlivin]

6. I have to program around the lack of cookies

Since the damned marketers have sullied unfairly the reputation of cookies, I have to work much harder to make a website work smoothly.

Cookies make it so much easier to retain information in the "stateless" world of the WWW. Without cookies I'm forced to write everything to a database, thus adding a layer of complexity that is otherwise unneeded. It slows transactions and presents more opportunities for errors.

Sigh. I guess this won't be the last thing ruined by marketers.

[mogster]

8. Aye, I agree

Cookies are good stuff, but the marketeers have exploited it too much.

There are two kind of cookies, though - pesistent and non-peristent. The non-persistent type resides in the browser memory, and are not written to disk. I mostly use that anyway.

[ixion]

9. agreed, myself as well, but there are some cases where

a persistent cookie is useful (obviously). It's a shame that this important tool has been ruined by unchecked, unethical business practices, just as they've ruined email with spam, and web pages with trojans, etc. :grr:

[atommom]

3. As a long-time cookie rejector/deleter, my attitude is

:nopity: Poor advertisers.

They're relying far too much on third-party cookies, IMO. From a PR standpoint, those cookies could soon be more a liability than a good business tool.

[mom cat]

5. I hate them, they are intrusive and I avoid sites that leave floaters.

[SoCalDem]

4. Perhaps "they" abused the use of cookies.

same with pop-ups.. They are so damned intrusive these days..

[amerfayed]

7. Try running TrendMicro's free online scan

http://housecall60.trendmicro.com/en/start_corp.asp

it will find viruses you never knew you had.

[mike_c]

10. it also refuses to do it from within Firefox...

...which really makes me suspicious. Even with my firewall and virus protection on, running IE makes me feel like I've left the door open, the lights on, and a plate of snacks out for the burglers....

[DeepModem Mom]

12. Thanks for posting, amerfayed -- welcome to DU!

[natrat]

11. i just installed spybot search and destroy off cnet, it's free

http://www.cnet.com/2001-11351_1-0.html?tag=cnetfd.wk