This site is rarely updated. benbrophy.com is more up-to-date. - Ben
Cookie Monster
Here's an interesting article on cookies (the browser kind, no the yummy kind). See, Marketers love them, but consumers are getting into the habit of blocking them are or deleting them all regularly.
I am one of those consumers. Much to the irritation of anyone who borrows my laptop, I Have my machine set to confirm all cookies as the come in, and I delete most of them. It's little slow doing it that way, but I learn a lot about how cookies set cookies. I am the kind of person the marketing could work on - the sites could convince me i should take their cookies.
I don't think the marketing will work. Because unlike me, most people don't want to sort their cookies separating good from bad, so they just delete them all on a regular basis.
One thing that worries me is this:
The tool uses features in Macromedia Inc.'s popular Flash software, which is used for designing and viewing animated online ads, to secretly make backup copies of a user's cookies before they are deleted.
I've also noticed Flash being used to get around pop-up ad blockers. I'm afraid that if this abuse continues, people may start blocking Flash content. Since I'm sort of romancing the idea of Flash development right now, I'd hate to see that happen.