Why not delete your cookies?
Are you aware that when using Internet Explorer and other browsers to surf the internet, your surfing history and habits can easily be viewed and tracked by third partys by your cookies.
Technology enables others to see and track all the sites you've visited! Deleting your cookies, downloaded internet files and images, prevents others from tracking your behavior.
There are plenty of reasons you might want to delete your cookies., and you should not trust all cookie removal software therefore you may have to delete cookies manually.
Cookies may contain credit card information and have passwords!
Deleting cookies can improve computer preformance especially on older machines
Almost 73.5% of all forturne 1000 companies admit they "record and review their employees' communications and activities on the job." This includes cookies.
Advertisers may track and record your movements and purchases!
Your computer may contain hidden or temporary Internet files left behind from surfing the Web. Frequently as you surf the Web, sites that you visit "push" information onto your computer without you knowing it and without your approval. These files, if left on your computer, may automatically spawn other objectionable Web sites or transmit personal information without your consent.
Things every Web site can find out about you
Thought your visit was anonymous? Think again. The Internet gives an image of anonymity, but dig a little deeper and you'll find it's a false front.
Almost all Internet sites, and certainly the bigger ones, collect information about their visitors. It's logged by the site server that sends Web pages to your computer, and the data is referred to as Web server logs or weblogs. You'll be surprised how much information your disloyal computer passes over to the site you're visiting. Nothing as serious as your name or email address, but probably much more than you'd expect. Here are the main items:
IP address
This is your "street address" for the Internet, it's a string of numbers that identify exactly where you are in the huge ever-changing mass of networks that make up the Internet. It has to be passed to the site so that it knows where to send the pages that you've requested.
The bad news is that your IP address is quite distinctive. It's easy to tell from the numbers which country you're connecting from and which Internet Service Provider you're using. The good news is that most ISPs use a rolling address system, so you get a different address each time you log on to the Internet (from a range held by your ISP). Though if you're using a computer on an office network it might have its own IP address that never changes.
Ultimately, you can be tracked down from your IP address. Even if it's a rolling address, your ISP keeps records of who is using any address at any given time. In the space of a few seconds they can link any address with a specific user. That's you. But naturally they're reluctant to do it, even for the police.
If you use a free ISP account that didn't need registration, the detail comes from your phone line. These accounts only work with "line recognition", which means the ISP receives your phone number when you log on. So however you access the Internet, you can be traced. The IP address collected by the site server for its records can be linked directly either to you or to your phone line.
Referring page
Many sites also collect referring page information. Your computer obviously knows where it's just come from, and the shameless electronic traitor freely passes this information on to the next site. "This is the site we arrived from," it says. Hey, who's in control here?
Browser and operating system
Your computer also tells its electronic friend at the other end what kind of browser you're using, including the version number, and what kind of operating system you have - Windows, Mac, Unix, whatever.
Screen details
Although not all computers do this, many also tell the site server what size screen you have (in pixels, not inches) and what kind of colour resolution you're using - 256, 16 bit, 24 bit. Is there no end to their treachery?
Pages viewed
And finally, without the assistance of your computer, the site server records everywhere you go on the site and how long you stay on each page.
So, these are just some of the reasons to delete your cookies.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Cookies
IN THEORY, COOKIE IS a darn-tootin' super idea for a publication. Take the kid-rearing tracts of years past, subtract the housewife stereotypes, add pinches of personality and pizzazz, and voilà: a mommy mag for the new millennium.
In execution, however, the mag plays much more like a cleverly veiled Lucky than anything boasting the tagline "all the best for your family" should. Cookie is no more about what's best for one's family than "The Empire Strikes Back" is about the feasibility of interplanetary travel. It's a mommy product bible, plain and simple, and the mag's attempts to camouflage this via cover lines like "Sneak In Whole Wheat: Get Your Kids to Go With the Grain" and "How to Temper the Tantrum" come across as wildly disingenuous. Basically, it's false advertising.
You can't fault the mag's creative team. On the design front, Cookie trumps just about every one of the 130-odd magazines I've reviewed in this space. Lisbeth Svarling's half-scrawled illustrations invest both the mom/kid horoscope page and "fight cub" tantrum-tempering piece with clever quirk, while the house-of-cards layout for the item on birth announcements breathes personality into a ho-hum topic. The photo spreads alternate between blissed-out beach shots and shimmery scenes from family get-togethers; not a single photo in the May/June issue feels posed.
Cookie also sweats the small stuff. For its editorial masthead, the mag arranges names in clock-like fashion around the big blue "O" of its logo. Never mind that the "O" more closely resembles a donut or a bagel than a cookie--such bursts of whimsy in unexpected places are Cookie's creative calling card.
No matter how sharp the layouts may look, however, they can't overcome the mag's slavish worship at the altar of commerce. There are watches with "sleek monochromatic faces" and "breezy" canvas bags and balms for "stressed skin" and makeup "tiny treats" and a whole lot of other crap that could just as easily have been plucked from Harper's Bazaar. That the mag won't rate a book or DVD lower than "not for all tastes, but worth a look" renders its reviews entirely moot. And apparently one of the six best ways to "preserve childhood ephemera with your own aesthetic" is to buy vintage T-shirts for your kids. Okay, then.
Most deceptive are the two pages of "{Cookie Cravings}," in which a bunch of products are showcased in typically sprightly layouts and accompanied by the usual moms-are-fab text. Only if you're paying attention--and gosh, that's why I'm here--do you notice the six-point, thin-fonted "Advertisement" in the way-upper-left-hand corner. At least the other advertorial pages highlight a company logo for all to see.
The irony is that Cookie does quite well for itself when it downplays the product whoring. The first-person piece on the decision to have a second child offers both wit and warmth, while the how-tos (on fostering solid grandparent-parent-child relationships and diminishing the frequency and intensity of toddler tantrums) convey smart tips in refreshingly to-the-point form.
But these moments are neutralized by Cookie's tendency to out-cute itself way too often. I'm willing to entertain any/all theories as to why a stat about the percentage of body weight gained by male marmosets during their partner's pregnancy belongs anywhere near this publication. A Q&A with a six-year-old "poet," a few lines from the Oregon state song... the ever-so-precious vibe gets grating really quick, and that's before the mag ranks "You Can't Always Get What You Want" among the "Ten Grown-Up Songs to Download For Your Kid." I understand the inclusion of "Octopus' Garden" and "Shiny Happy People" (though the latter makes me want to break things), but doesn't Mr. Jagger sing of a gal who "was practiced at the art of deception/I could tell by her blood-stained hands"? Whatever.
In the title's online media kit, Cookie's bakers blab that, philosophically, they believe that "being a good parent and maintaining your sense of style are not mutually exclusive." That may be true in reality, but in the magazine world, products and parents don't mix at least nowhere near as seamlessly as Cookie would have you believe. Until the publication decides to emphasize one or the other, it will remain an irritatingly schizophrenic read.
In execution, however, the mag plays much more like a cleverly veiled Lucky than anything boasting the tagline "all the best for your family" should. Cookie is no more about what's best for one's family than "The Empire Strikes Back" is about the feasibility of interplanetary travel. It's a mommy product bible, plain and simple, and the mag's attempts to camouflage this via cover lines like "Sneak In Whole Wheat: Get Your Kids to Go With the Grain" and "How to Temper the Tantrum" come across as wildly disingenuous. Basically, it's false advertising.
You can't fault the mag's creative team. On the design front, Cookie trumps just about every one of the 130-odd magazines I've reviewed in this space. Lisbeth Svarling's half-scrawled illustrations invest both the mom/kid horoscope page and "fight cub" tantrum-tempering piece with clever quirk, while the house-of-cards layout for the item on birth announcements breathes personality into a ho-hum topic. The photo spreads alternate between blissed-out beach shots and shimmery scenes from family get-togethers; not a single photo in the May/June issue feels posed.
Cookie also sweats the small stuff. For its editorial masthead, the mag arranges names in clock-like fashion around the big blue "O" of its logo. Never mind that the "O" more closely resembles a donut or a bagel than a cookie--such bursts of whimsy in unexpected places are Cookie's creative calling card.
No matter how sharp the layouts may look, however, they can't overcome the mag's slavish worship at the altar of commerce. There are watches with "sleek monochromatic faces" and "breezy" canvas bags and balms for "stressed skin" and makeup "tiny treats" and a whole lot of other crap that could just as easily have been plucked from Harper's Bazaar. That the mag won't rate a book or DVD lower than "not for all tastes, but worth a look" renders its reviews entirely moot. And apparently one of the six best ways to "preserve childhood ephemera with your own aesthetic" is to buy vintage T-shirts for your kids. Okay, then.
Most deceptive are the two pages of "{Cookie Cravings}," in which a bunch of products are showcased in typically sprightly layouts and accompanied by the usual moms-are-fab text. Only if you're paying attention--and gosh, that's why I'm here--do you notice the six-point, thin-fonted "Advertisement" in the way-upper-left-hand corner. At least the other advertorial pages highlight a company logo for all to see.
The irony is that Cookie does quite well for itself when it downplays the product whoring. The first-person piece on the decision to have a second child offers both wit and warmth, while the how-tos (on fostering solid grandparent-parent-child relationships and diminishing the frequency and intensity of toddler tantrums) convey smart tips in refreshingly to-the-point form.
But these moments are neutralized by Cookie's tendency to out-cute itself way too often. I'm willing to entertain any/all theories as to why a stat about the percentage of body weight gained by male marmosets during their partner's pregnancy belongs anywhere near this publication. A Q&A with a six-year-old "poet," a few lines from the Oregon state song... the ever-so-precious vibe gets grating really quick, and that's before the mag ranks "You Can't Always Get What You Want" among the "Ten Grown-Up Songs to Download For Your Kid." I understand the inclusion of "Octopus' Garden" and "Shiny Happy People" (though the latter makes me want to break things), but doesn't Mr. Jagger sing of a gal who "was practiced at the art of deception/I could tell by her blood-stained hands"? Whatever.
In the title's online media kit, Cookie's bakers blab that, philosophically, they believe that "being a good parent and maintaining your sense of style are not mutually exclusive." That may be true in reality, but in the magazine world, products and parents don't mix at least nowhere near as seamlessly as Cookie would have you believe. Until the publication decides to emphasize one or the other, it will remain an irritatingly schizophrenic read.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Web Audience Measurement by Cookie Counting Considerably Overestimated
comScore recently released a study that analyzes the validity of using cookie-based data to measure unique visitors and to guage the number of unique users that were served an ad by an ad server. The results indicate that Web site server logs that count unique cookies to measure unique visitors are likely to be exaggerating the size of the site's audience by a factor as high as 2.5, or an overstatement of 150 percent
A "cookie", a small text file inserted on a user's computer by a Web server, is often used by web servers to identify and authenticate, track, and maintain specific personal information. First-party cookies are those left on a computer by a Web site that has been visited, while third-party cookies are those left by a domain different than the site being visited.
The Study observed that:
31 percent of U.S. Internet users cleared their first-party cookies during the month.
Within this user segment, the study found an average of 4.7 different cookies for the site.
Among the 7 percent of computers with at least 4 cookie resets, the study found an average of 12.5 distinct first-party cookies per computer, accounting for 35 percent of all cookies observed in the analysis.
An average of 2.5 distinct first-party cookies were observed per computer for the site being examined.
Cookie Deletion Analysis (1st Party Cookies December 2006)
Number of Cookie Deletions/Resets
Percent of Computers
Avg. No. of Cookies per Computer
Percent of Cookies
Total Sample
100%
2.5
100%
1 or more
31%
4.7
58%
4 or more
7%
12.5
35%
Source: comScore, Inc., April 2007
Dr. Magid Abraham, President and CEO of comScore, concludes that "...with just 7 percent of computers accounting for 35 percent of all cookies, it's clear that a certain segment of Internet users clears its cookies very frequently. These ‘serial resetters' have the potential to wildly inflate a site's internal unique visitor tally, because just one set of ‘eyeballs' at the site may be counted as 10 or more unique visitors over the course of a month. The result is a highly inflated estimate of unique visitors for sites that rely on cookies to count their audience."
The analysis of third-party cookies revealed an average of 2.6 distinct cookies per computer in December, indicating a similar rate of overstatement as the first-party cookies.
Cookie Deletion Analysis (3rd Party Cookies December 2006)
Number of Cookie Deletions/Resets
Percent of Computers
Avg. No. of Cookies per Computer
Percent of Cookies
Total Sample
100%
2.6
100%
1 or more
27%
5.5
57%
4 or more
7%
14.2
38%
Source: comScore, Inc., April, 2007
Dr. Abraham also noted that "There is a common perception that third-party cookie deletion rates should be significantly higher than first-party cookie deletion rates. Because many PC users reset or delete their cookies using security protection programs, conventional wisdom dictates that people are more likely to selectively expunge third-party cookies, which are generally deemed more invasive, while maintaining their first-party cookies. But these findings suggest that selective cookie management is not prevalent... confirmed via a survey, with only 4 percent of Internet users indicating that they delete third-party but not first-party cookies."
Mohanbir Sawhney, McCormick Tribune Professor of Technology at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, commented "To measure audiences more accurately, it is important to link visits to unique individuals, not unique cookies. As privacy programs become more entrenched, cookie-based audience counts will get even more unreliable."
And Bill Cook, PhD, Senior Vice President for Research and Standards at the Advertising Research Foundation, adds "Reach and frequency metrics are the cornerstone of any media plan, and given the size of the discrepancies that can occur when counting cookies instead of people, the study underscores the importance of panel-based measurement. For the advertising community, an accurate understanding of reach and frequency within a given target audience is vital."
A "cookie", a small text file inserted on a user's computer by a Web server, is often used by web servers to identify and authenticate, track, and maintain specific personal information. First-party cookies are those left on a computer by a Web site that has been visited, while third-party cookies are those left by a domain different than the site being visited.
The Study observed that:
31 percent of U.S. Internet users cleared their first-party cookies during the month.
Within this user segment, the study found an average of 4.7 different cookies for the site.
Among the 7 percent of computers with at least 4 cookie resets, the study found an average of 12.5 distinct first-party cookies per computer, accounting for 35 percent of all cookies observed in the analysis.
An average of 2.5 distinct first-party cookies were observed per computer for the site being examined.
Cookie Deletion Analysis (1st Party Cookies December 2006)
Number of Cookie Deletions/Resets
Percent of Computers
Avg. No. of Cookies per Computer
Percent of Cookies
Total Sample
100%
2.5
100%
1 or more
31%
4.7
58%
4 or more
7%
12.5
35%
Source: comScore, Inc., April 2007
Dr. Magid Abraham, President and CEO of comScore, concludes that "...with just 7 percent of computers accounting for 35 percent of all cookies, it's clear that a certain segment of Internet users clears its cookies very frequently. These ‘serial resetters' have the potential to wildly inflate a site's internal unique visitor tally, because just one set of ‘eyeballs' at the site may be counted as 10 or more unique visitors over the course of a month. The result is a highly inflated estimate of unique visitors for sites that rely on cookies to count their audience."
The analysis of third-party cookies revealed an average of 2.6 distinct cookies per computer in December, indicating a similar rate of overstatement as the first-party cookies.
Cookie Deletion Analysis (3rd Party Cookies December 2006)
Number of Cookie Deletions/Resets
Percent of Computers
Avg. No. of Cookies per Computer
Percent of Cookies
Total Sample
100%
2.6
100%
1 or more
27%
5.5
57%
4 or more
7%
14.2
38%
Source: comScore, Inc., April, 2007
Dr. Abraham also noted that "There is a common perception that third-party cookie deletion rates should be significantly higher than first-party cookie deletion rates. Because many PC users reset or delete their cookies using security protection programs, conventional wisdom dictates that people are more likely to selectively expunge third-party cookies, which are generally deemed more invasive, while maintaining their first-party cookies. But these findings suggest that selective cookie management is not prevalent... confirmed via a survey, with only 4 percent of Internet users indicating that they delete third-party but not first-party cookies."
Mohanbir Sawhney, McCormick Tribune Professor of Technology at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, commented "To measure audiences more accurately, it is important to link visits to unique individuals, not unique cookies. As privacy programs become more entrenched, cookie-based audience counts will get even more unreliable."
And Bill Cook, PhD, Senior Vice President for Research and Standards at the Advertising Research Foundation, adds "Reach and frequency metrics are the cornerstone of any media plan, and given the size of the discrepancies that can occur when counting cookies instead of people, the study underscores the importance of panel-based measurement. For the advertising community, an accurate understanding of reach and frequency within a given target audience is vital."
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