New Technique for Tracking Web Site Visitors
Found on Slashdot on Sunday, 03 April 2005
According to Jupiter Research, 58% of web surfers deleted cookies from their system in 2004. This has sent a loud message to marketers in regard to consumer's preference as to tracking their online activities. The marketers have responded with PIE. Persistent Identification Element (PIE) is a technology that uses Macromedia's Flash MX to track you even without using cookies. Macromedia has created a page to instruct users on how to disable this.
I don't delete cookies. I don't accept them in the first place, except for the few rare cases where they are useful (like boards). Then there are those shops which tell you that you have to accept cookies so you can use it. What a pity: they want to sell something. I simply chose another shop, which is more friendly. Some sites hammer you with cookie requests, even if it should be quite obvious that if the first cookie wasn't set, the 200th cookie won't be set either. That doesn't even make me yawn.