Firefox backs 'Do Not Track' with online stealth

Physorg Internet Software ^ | December 19, 2010 | Glenn Chapman

[dila813]

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-new-do-not-track1-2010dec10,0,121956.story

Federal Trade Commission current in House Sub-Committee meetings - read more

“”If a broad percentage of people signed on to this, it would really undercut the Internet model,” said Stuart Ingis, counsel to the Digital Advertising Alliance, a trade group whose members include Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc.”

“The mechanism, which consumers would have to activate once, would send a signal to each website visited indicating that the person’s data should not be tracked and that the person did not want to receive advertisements targeted to past searches or other online history.”

I don’t think it is cool when ever the government gets involved. If the button was the only thing involved and it would just turn off cookies etc.. I would be cool with it.

[Still Thinking]

Actually, when I was composing my original post, that’s what I thought it was. Even so, my post only addressed technical elements in the post that I was responding to. But I agree with you, I’m not sure this is a problem that needs a government fix either.

[zeugma]

If too many people click the button this could be a significant issue for Internet companies. Many depend on tracking for even minor features.

Yup. Some sites set up 10 or more cookies just to display crap on the page. I've got firefox set to ask for every cookie, and it is insanely annoying. Sites that take to many clicks get abandoned, never to return.

Thank God for the noscript add-on.

[dila813]

I just have it set to automatically delete all cookies on exit. For specific sites I override this to save the cookies I want to retain.

[epithermal]

If you are not already aware of it there is a type of cookie that FF will not delete, called a Flash cookie. The FF add on BetterPrivacy will delete them at the end of every session. This site has some info on these new type of Flash cookies:

http://www.itworld.com/internet/118784/how-murder-a-flash-cookie-zombie

[dila813]

I don’t use firefox when I don’t have too

[epithermal]

Flash cookies apply to all browsers.

[dila813]

Firefox: Blocking them

http://www.orzeszek.org/blog/2009/08/12/how-to-delete-flash-cookies-conveniently/

For everyone else:
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/08/you-deleted-your-cookies-think-again/

Just delete them out of HOME\AppData\Roaming\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\

[epithermal]

Thanks, but the original link I gave you explains how to shut them off in Flash, which I have already done:

http://www.itworld.com/internet/118784/how-murder-a-flash-cookie-zombie?page=0%2C1

[dila813]

everytime they upgrade you, you may have noticed they reset the settings

[epithermal]

Thanks for the heads up. I don’t like Flash so I seldom upgrade and I usually block it with noscript from playing.

[dila813]

It would be nice if they gave you a registry entry at least to change the installation options, heck no.....

You might be surprised if you search all your files for the word google what you will find.

Google has all the tricks.