Tracking Cookies

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demag
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Tracking Cookies

Post by demag »

I ran Adaware on my pc tonight and it warned me of a tracking cookie from Autotrader of all places.
Beware.
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Kowalski
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Post by Kowalski »

What about Andyspares? This forum tracks you, it means once you're logged in you don't have to re-log in every time you come back to the site.
Autotrader gives more search facilities to people who are logged in, so you get a cookie for the same reason.
vanny
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Post by vanny »

Andyspares uses a Cookie, not a tracker! The Cookie holds information (usually encrypted) that is only read once it has been made, and would contain such information as to allow a forum to log you in automatically. Some like Ebay have expiry dates while others, like this forum have no expiry date.
Trackers on the other hand are a log abotu certain information, be it site's you've visited or searches you have made. These are readibly updatable by websites. In the case of Autotrader it will remember searches you have made and probably location information as well, but it will also contain normal Cookie information to log you in.
Both are harmless and very useful ideas so long as they are not abused. Generally p**n websites are the abusers here and will monitor every site you go on and report back to the originator. Its a good plan to clean them out every now and again as they can give away things you might not like (like how many p**n sites you've been on!) and they also slow your explorer software as it has to go looking through all the cookies/trackers to find the correct one when a website requests it.
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