Slashdot Mirror
Marketers Back "Cookies Are Good For You" Campaign
Makarand writes "The increasing numbers of computer users
who regularly delete cookies downloaded by
their browsers is
worrying online marketers and Web
site publishers who feel that the changing
consumer attitude towards cookies is harming
cookie usefulness and unfairly lumping them
with spyware and viruses. This industry group
wants to persuade companies making antispyware programs
to spare legitimate cookies while sweeping hard drives clean
of unnecessary or harmful files.
Some marketers think that providing consumers more information about cookies and how they're used
might change their attitudes towards cookies.
Others are already busy experimenting with newer approaches to serve up targeted ads even if a user has deleted his cookies."
Nope,
IMNSHO, any site that requires the use of flash, ECMAscript, Java (clientside) or anything else aside from straight *TML is broken and needs fixing.
A site should be navigable by Lynx on its index page and abide by the previous statement everywhere else.
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
"a means by which marketing companies gather and compile data about me on my own computer so that they more effectively target me"
Yeah, because its a real problem that some computer program might know your wants and needs and actually cares to cater to them as opposed to throwing crap up on the screen that you will never want.
But if its something I want, the idiot privacy freaks scream, I might be distracted where is if its nothing I want, I will ignore it. Dammit Why do they have to give me access to anything interesting.
I can't stand the idiot privacy folks. 9 times out of 10 its because they are doing something illegal or immoral. The other time its because of mental illness. There is no reason to need privacy. I'd masterbate in my own home with the curtains open if I didn't worry about getting arrested by some freak because her daughter saw me.
And guess what? Even though I just clicked Post Anonymously, I'm positive that Slashdot knows who I am and its robotic brain could give this info to the police if they wanted to. Who the fuck cares wacko?
Most Slashdot readers seem to be either one or the other. Cookies (for the most part) are harmless and transparent. Why do you expect that by using someone else's web site you have the right to do it on your own terms? It's a sick sort of self-importance that makes you think you can do anything you want and be completely anonymous. The Internet is fairly new but having your presence and actions noted by others has been around for a long time.
And explain to me - how in the world does a cookie saying "Unknown User X likes to visit slashdot and wired" compromise your sacred privacy?
"Then some whack job at my company started to tell everyone that cookies were 'dangerous' and they should block them. Of course then I started to get complaints that my systems no longer functioned."
You got a very deserved bite in the ass. XML is a standard. CSS is a standard. Cookies are a standard. But who in the world ever told you that having cookies on is a standard? It is not. You never know if the viewer has cookies on. You have to be either stupid or very stubborn to rely on something that you never know whether it will be there to catch you when you jump and/or demand that the viewers configure their browsers your way.
Stop being lazy and blaming the viewers. Face the truth: demanding cookies (or Flash or Javascript) is more than often just an admission of bad design, like "this page only looks right in Internet Explorer".