sun
07-27-2005, 10:33 AM
Find out how you are traced while surfing on the Web
Using Find File, look for a file called cookies.txt (or MagicCookie if you have a Mac machine). Using a text editor, open the file and take a look. If you've been doing any browsing, the odds are about 80/20 that you'll find a cookie in there from someone called "doubleclick.net".
If you're like me, you never went to a site called "doubleclick". So how did they give you a cookie? After all, the idea of the cookie, according to the specs published by Netscape, is to make a more efficient connection between the server the delivers the cookie and the client machine which receives it. But we have never connected to "doubleclick".
Close MagicCookie, connect to the Internet, and jump to www.doubleclick.net (http://www.doubleclick.net) Read all about how they are going to make money giving us cookies we don't know about, collecting data on all World Wide Web users, and delivering targeted REAL TIME marketing based on our cookies and our profiles. Pay special attention to the information at:advertising/howads.htm You'll see that the folks at "doubleclick" make the point that this entire transaction (between their server and your machine) is transparent to the user. In plain English, that means you'll never know what hit you. So what's happening is, subscribers to the doubleclick service put a "cookie request" on their home page for the DoubleClick Cookie.
When you hit such a site, it requests the cookie and take a look to see who you are, and any other information in your cookie file. It then sends a request to "doubleclick" with your ID, requesting all available marketing information about you. (They're very coy about where this information comes from, but it seems clear that at least some of it comes from your record of hitting "doubleclick" enabled sites.) You then receive specially targetted marketing banners from the site. In other words, if Helmut Newton and I log on to the same site at the exact same time, I'll see ads for wetsuits and basketballs, and Helmut will see ads for cameras. If you log in to a "doubleclick" enabled site, and it sends a request for your "doubleclick" cookie, and you don't have one, why each and every one of those sites will hand you a "doubleclick" cookie. Neat, huh? And you can bet they're going to be rolling in the cookie dough.
The main concern is that all this is done without anyone's knowledge. Some people may find the gathering of any information invasive to their privacy, but to the average level headed personal, the use of this information is harmless in itself as long as you know the limitations of these networks, who is collecting what information and for what purpose. On the other hand, what right should anyone have to collect information about me without my knowledge, and why should they break my right to privacy, you have to find the right balance between these views. One of the main issues is awareness.
So much for making the "client-server negotiation more efficient", whatever your view on tracking, the cookie protocol has certainly been manipulated for this use, against its original intent. Note that recent versions of Netscape have an option to show an alert before accepting a cookie and they also allow you to block cookies completely, see the Version 4 update and the Stopping Cookies page for more detailed information
One more piece of information: You wonder who uses these here computer cookies?....Oh let me tell you the ways: ever here of Google? Yahoo? your internet provider? New York Times? Toonzone is the only organization that claims to remove cookies after you log out....have fun on the net...oh, later I will put on this thread, if anyone reads it...How to remove all computer cookies from your computer.....Stuart
Using Find File, look for a file called cookies.txt (or MagicCookie if you have a Mac machine). Using a text editor, open the file and take a look. If you've been doing any browsing, the odds are about 80/20 that you'll find a cookie in there from someone called "doubleclick.net".
If you're like me, you never went to a site called "doubleclick". So how did they give you a cookie? After all, the idea of the cookie, according to the specs published by Netscape, is to make a more efficient connection between the server the delivers the cookie and the client machine which receives it. But we have never connected to "doubleclick".
Close MagicCookie, connect to the Internet, and jump to www.doubleclick.net (http://www.doubleclick.net) Read all about how they are going to make money giving us cookies we don't know about, collecting data on all World Wide Web users, and delivering targeted REAL TIME marketing based on our cookies and our profiles. Pay special attention to the information at:advertising/howads.htm You'll see that the folks at "doubleclick" make the point that this entire transaction (between their server and your machine) is transparent to the user. In plain English, that means you'll never know what hit you. So what's happening is, subscribers to the doubleclick service put a "cookie request" on their home page for the DoubleClick Cookie.
When you hit such a site, it requests the cookie and take a look to see who you are, and any other information in your cookie file. It then sends a request to "doubleclick" with your ID, requesting all available marketing information about you. (They're very coy about where this information comes from, but it seems clear that at least some of it comes from your record of hitting "doubleclick" enabled sites.) You then receive specially targetted marketing banners from the site. In other words, if Helmut Newton and I log on to the same site at the exact same time, I'll see ads for wetsuits and basketballs, and Helmut will see ads for cameras. If you log in to a "doubleclick" enabled site, and it sends a request for your "doubleclick" cookie, and you don't have one, why each and every one of those sites will hand you a "doubleclick" cookie. Neat, huh? And you can bet they're going to be rolling in the cookie dough.
The main concern is that all this is done without anyone's knowledge. Some people may find the gathering of any information invasive to their privacy, but to the average level headed personal, the use of this information is harmless in itself as long as you know the limitations of these networks, who is collecting what information and for what purpose. On the other hand, what right should anyone have to collect information about me without my knowledge, and why should they break my right to privacy, you have to find the right balance between these views. One of the main issues is awareness.
So much for making the "client-server negotiation more efficient", whatever your view on tracking, the cookie protocol has certainly been manipulated for this use, against its original intent. Note that recent versions of Netscape have an option to show an alert before accepting a cookie and they also allow you to block cookies completely, see the Version 4 update and the Stopping Cookies page for more detailed information
One more piece of information: You wonder who uses these here computer cookies?....Oh let me tell you the ways: ever here of Google? Yahoo? your internet provider? New York Times? Toonzone is the only organization that claims to remove cookies after you log out....have fun on the net...oh, later I will put on this thread, if anyone reads it...How to remove all computer cookies from your computer.....Stuart