Would Exchanging Cookies Defeat DoubleClick?

An Anonymous Coward asks: "After reading all the articles on cookies, DoubleClick, etc., an idea occurred to me and i thought i'd throw it out to the community to comment/flame and/or hopefully implement: since privacy is compromised because cookies *correlate* you with where you've been and other info, would it be feasible to host a "cookie exchange" server and application? e.g. you'd run this app before you surf, and it would reach into your browser cookie jar and *exchange* your DoubleClick cookie with somebody else's who is also running Cookie Exchange. Repeat for each site you wish to remain anonymous for. It seems that this would be more effective than disabling cookies, as it would mess up DoubleClick's correlations and tracking - you'd never have the same profile from day-to-day!" While an interesting thought. It doesn't exactly address the problem. I can imagine this making even more SPAM because one user's tracking profile now contains useless information from someone else's cookies. Would this be a good idea or even a fun way to protest DoubleClick?

Comments

Pointless

[cperciva]

Doubleclick keeps track of IP addresses. If their computers see someone connecting from random IP addresses all over IPv4-space (ie, not from within a pool of modems belonging to a single ISP), they will mark that "user" as bogus.

There is absolutely no difference between playing cookie-exchange and simply disabling doubleclick cookies.

A Cookie Corruptor....

[scotpurl]

What we really need is two things:

1. The cookie equivalent of RBL or ORBS. Some list of bad-guys. (Yeah, I know about JunkBusters. Tried it, but it was clunky.) It should work over the 19.2 and 28.8 connections I'm plagued with at hotels.
2. A little program or plug-in, that when evil attempts to store 1k of information on my computer, it crushes the cookie, and returns completely random information. But nicely formatted random information.

I'll settle for #2. I guess I know what program I'm going to be starting on. :-)

It would be nice for the cookie alert pop-ups most browsers had two more buttons: "Always Accept from This Domain", and "Ban EVERYTHING from This Domain".

I don't want the cookie, the traffic, the graphic.

Funny, but worth it?

[sonnerbob]

Pretty funny idea...similar to the game of swapping grocery store discount cards. (see this USAToday column)

But beyond amusement, this wouldn't serve much purpose IF you could pull it off. On a large enough scale, it might amount to a form of protest, but why? Okay...Doubleclick has become the poster child of the profiling evil empire. And now Coremetrics has received the brunt of the privacy policy ignorance of its clients, putting the spotlight on third party data-mining. In either case, cookies represent an essential tool to get their jobs done. If you don't like it...your options are simple:

• Configure your browser.
• Use a local proxy or filter. Adsubtract is a good one. I like Proxomitron.
• Use a browser "companion". IDcide works well. It's free.
• Use a proxy service that manages cookies like Privada or Freedom (yep, sneaking my affiliate ID in that URL). Zapada is a clever Java applet approach to keeping Doubleclick et.al. out.
• Periodically clean out your cookie files, either manually or using any number of file tools like Webroot's WindowWasher.
• Just install Doubleclick's opt-out cookie. I've assembled the URLs in one convenient location at http://webveil.com/optout.html.
• Or physically edit your cookie file/directory to be read only...after installing the cookies you want in order to get personalized service...like here at Slashdot.

Cookie angst is so overwrought, but if they bother you...whip 'em into shape. You certainly have options. An exchange system would be interesting and entertaining, but enough to be worth the effort? I'll participate if someone does the work, but I think there are better uses of your programming time.