New cookies much harder to crumble

These aren't your grandma's cookies.

And they aren't the traditional electronic cookies that created a file on your computer's hard drive when you visited a Web site. This file, or cookie, would record data about you, perhaps your password and preferences. More than a third of users have learned to delete these cookies from their computers each month.

Now there's a different batch of cookies - they're newer, they're tougher, and they stay around a lot longer. They come with persistent identification element, a little-known technology that evades cookie deletion. PIE hides within a little-known corner of your computer. PIE recreates itself even after a user deletes a cookie by making a backup copy.

Introduced in early April, PIE is the latest escalation in the cookie wars, and it already is creating controversy among Web site operators and other industry players. Many are outraged and say such aggressive tactics will spur users to distrust all cookies and take drastic measures that will worsen the Web experience.

The furor started in March, when Eric Peterson, an analyst at Jupiter Research, revealed a survey that showed as many as 39 percent of online users might be deleting "cookies" from their primary computer at least monthly.

Users aren't just doing it manually. They're downloading anti-spyware software, which also erases many cookies, bringing the cookie deletion rate as high as 58 percent of users in a year, according to Jupiter.

Web sites use cookies to assign a user number, or cookies can include others things, such as shopping cart information, so you don't have to type it all in again when you return.

Trouble is, the spike in cookie deletions is causing alarm among Web site operators, who depend on the personal information to track crucial business metrics: customer count, number of return visitors, performance by ads and a customer's reaction to them.

The advertising industry is facing some of the biggest effects of cookie deletions. Advertisers depend on "third-party" cookies, or those put on your hard drive by a partner of the Web site you visit - such as advertisers. Anti-spyware software programs increasingly are deleting these.

"We're trying to get a handle on this," said Kevin Lee, founder of Did-it.com, which helps companies advertise online.

He knows there's a growing deletion trend but says his company still is studying its magnitude.

PIE is offered by a New York company called United Virtualities.

Founder Mookie Tenembaum says he has already signed up "more than 10" customers using it.

Delivered by cookie, PIE hides in the "local shared objects" feature of the Macromedia Flash Player, a technology loaded on more than 98 percent of computers. It protects other cookies by making backup copies even if they are deleted.

PIE can be shut off only if a user decides to reject all cookies at the outset, Tenembaum says.

But such a blanket rejection policy, which can be implemented by tinkering with a browser's settings, is a draconian step for most users; it means shutting down cookies for their favorite sites, too.

One potential result of PIE, Peterson and others say, could be that consumers become so suspicious of all cookies, including the "flash cookies" on Macromedia's player, most of which are benign, that they will demand anti-spyware software programs that erase everything, flash cookies included.

Anti-spyware companies have a financial incentive to hype the danger of cookies so they can sell more software - something Tenembaum says his cookies aims to combat.