I’m something of a privacy advocate these days being that I’m not too wild about some of the things that certain companies are doing in the way of tracking my activities on the Internet without telling me – all in the name of making a buck through advertising. It’s all very cloak-and-dagger: Figuring out the profile of someone on the basis of the web sites and transactions that they engage in.
Well, a customer of mine reminded me about this little doozy and I thought it was worth writing about.
Q: Did you know that Macromedia Flash is tracking you?
Wait – how can Flash be tracking us? After all, we have cookies turned off on our browser and we all aggressively wipe our Internet caches frequently using CCLEANER.EXE or some tool like it, right?
FLASH HAS IT’S OWN SEPARATELY MANAGED COOKIES
Well, remember that innocuous little Flash player you installed so that you could see those "snazzy animations" and "YouTube videos"? Well, it turns out it has its own cookies – completely separate from traditional standards-based cookies. And, no, nothing you do within Internet Explorer’s configuration can stop it from storing those Flash cookies on your system.
This is because Flash is actually a binary application unto itself and it can do whatever it pleases while it’s on the Internet regardless of what you’ve set within Internet Explorer. It has its own configuration, its own rules and guidelines, its own directory, and operating system configuration settings be damned.
HOW TO GET RID OF FLASH COOKIES
There’s a number of ways to get rid of them or block them:
- Clear the C:Documents and Settings[your user name]Application DataMacromediaFlash Player directory.
- Go to the Macromedia Website Privacy Settings Panel and change the cookie settings for Flash.
- Download CCLEANER.EXE for free and have it clear Adobe Flash Player content. Better yet, set CCLEANER to run at boot up and automatically clear out your Internet cache, your temp directories, and your Adobe Flash Player cookies.
E.P.I.C.’S WRITE UP ABOUT FLASH COOKIES & PRIVACY
For more information visit:
http://www.epic.org/privacy/cookies/flash.html
kurtsh
Kurt Shintaku's Blog 