Undeleting Cookies Or Is It Just Spyware?
from the just-what-was-not-needed dept
Cookie technology is often misunderstood. It is quite useful, and it's unlikely to be misused widely. In fact, even the various tracking cookies that some spyware programs highlight aren't really that bad. Still, if you want to delete your cookies, you should certainly be allowed to do so. However, just as reports are coming out claiming that an awful lot of people are deleting their cookies regularly, some company has come up with a technology that secretly restores deleted cookies on the theory that users are too stupid to understand cookies and that they probably didn't want them deleted in the first place. Beyond being obnoxious, this certainly sounds like it could be illegal. As Mitch Wagner explains in the article linked above: "So let's review, shall we? PIE inserts itself on machines without the user's permission. (spyware) It tracks the user's behavior without the user's permission. (spyware) It reports that information back to the licensee of the software. (spyware) And it blocks users' attempts to disable tracking. (spyware) If only there was a (spyware) word to describe software that behaves in that fashion." We can hope this is just an April Fool's joke gone wrong, but it sounds like the company might just be serious.
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Correlation between Cookie Deleting and Porn
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Flash does have such a data area
To remember how a customer configured a car is a reasonable way to use such a feature. But there is little doubt that this could be abused in the same way as cookies, and perhaps as described in the article. Flash is now barred from writing data to my PCs, and I block Flash unless I absolutely need it anyway.
Most people won't know or bother to reconfigure Flash. Regardless, it is the height of arrogance for a company to suggest that people really want their cookies but are too dumb to keep them.
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Re: Flash does have such a data area
Responsible sites use reasonable expiration dates on cookies.
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Re: Flash does have such a data area
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