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Lawsuit Hits Companies Using 'Zombie' Flash Cookies

Posted by kdawson on from the brains-for-a-filling dept.

A privacy activist has filed a lawsuit targeting eight corporate users of Quantcast's "zombie" Flash cookies, in addition to Quantcast itself. The suit alleges that MTV, ESPN, MySpace, Hulu, ABC, Scribd, and others used Quancast's Flash-based cookies to recreate browser tracking cookies that users had taken the trouble to delete. "At issue is technology from Quantcast, also targeted in the lawsuit. Quantcast created Flash cookies that track users across the web, and used them to re-create traditional browser cookies that users deleted from their computers. These 'zombie' cookies came to light last year, after researchers at UC Berkeley documented deleted browser cookies returning to life. Quantcast quickly fixed the issue, calling it an unintended consequence of trying to measure web traffic accurately. ... The lawsuit (PDF)... asks the court to find that the practice violated eavesdropping and hacking laws, and that the practice of secretly tracking users also violated state and federal fair trade laws. The lawsuit alleges a 'pattern of covert online surveillance' and seeks status as a class action lawsuit."

12 of 140 comments (clear)

  1. Save games by Dwedit · · Score: 1, Informative

    Flash Sharedobjects aren't the same as cookies. They are often used as save files for Flash games. Then we have badly behaving programs like CCleaner which aggressively try to delete them all until you notice that it's about to delete all your save files, and stop it before it wipes them away.

  2. Use better privacy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Use Better privacy.

    I whitelist all the flash LSOs I want to keep, and have better privacy delete the others when I quit firefox.

    Flashblock can also help.

    I find noscript annoying.

    I also accept all normal cookies for session only, and whitelist sites I want to stay logged in on using Cookie monster.

  3. BetterPrivacy plug-in by sphealey · · Score: 4, Informative

    At least for the Flash cookies on Wintel, the BetterPrivacy plug-in seems to be doing a good job of deleting them for me.

    sPh

    1. Re:BetterPrivacy plug-in by mlts · · Score: 4, Informative

      +1 on BetterPrivacy. Install that as an add-on, and it works on Windows and OS X. No more worries about Flash shared objects because it can be set to zap them at very short time intervals, as well as when you open or close the browser.

      Firefox + BetterPrivacy + AdBlock + NoScript probably do as much for keeping a Windows machine clear of malicious software as most AV programs.

  4. Here is the shitty site by psyclone · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager07.html

    Noscript users must temporarily allow adobe.com as well. (But at least you don't need to allow real cookies for either domain.)

    You can set the flash plugin to not store any data, but it sure gets annoying on some sites when the volume controls don't work. You can also set it to ask, but it's even more annoying to try and hit the "cancel" button 15 times with choppy video behind it.

  5. Re:Not Quantcast's fault by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Don't blame Quantcast. They're using the technology as Macromedia intended

    You logic is flawed. If I kill a human with a Samurai sword, would you blame the maker of the sword?

    Flash comes with every version of Windows since at least XP

    Do you mean Dell computers with Windows? Maybe, but no version of Windows ever came with Flash.

  6. Re:On LInux: by izomiac · · Score: 2, Informative

    On Windows, in an elevated command prompt:
    icacls "%APPDATA%\Macromedia\Flash Player" /setowner SYSTEM
    icacls "%APPDATA%\Macromedia\Flash Player" /inheritance:r /deny everyone:F

    Though I'd recommend a simple:
    icacls "%APPDATA%\Macromedia\Flash Player" /inheritance:d /deny everyone:(WD,AD)

  7. Re:Not Quantcast's fault by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Windows XP did. It's what they used to display the "Welcome to Windows XP" intro (the big one) when you installed it. But that was a while back.

  8. OS X can use this program to delete flash cookies by qwertyatwork · · Score: 2, Informative

    OS X can use this program to delete flash cookies http://machacks.tv/2009/01/27/flushapp-flash-cookie-removal-tool-for-os-x/

  9. Re:OS X can use this program to delete flash cooki by BearRanger · · Score: 3, Informative

    No program necessary to do this. Just remove ~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/#SharedObjects. Set up a cron job or an Automator script to do it hourly.

  10. Re:Not Quantcast's fault by Tacvek · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually this is not a troll. Take a look in the C:\windows\help\tours\mmtour folder of a new windows XP 32-bit installation and you will find that the tour is SWF based.

    Among other dlls pre-installed on the system is a flash 3 or flash 4, or some similar early version dll (I forget the version or exact file name, but a search for 'flash' or 'swf' in file names on a brand new XP install (you might need to run the tour first to have it appear) should probably find it. I don't believe the browser plug-in ever came pre-installed, but the core DLL most definitely did.

    --
    Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524
  11. Manage Flash Cookies the easy way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Place this code into your crontab to run every day.

          rm -rf ${HOME}/.macromedia/*

    Flash cookies are handled perfectly. You may need to use ${LOGNAME} instead. I've added these lines to the beginning of my daily backup job. Simple. Effective.

    Adobe AIR probably does something similar, so check for that crap in a similar manner, if you still have AIR installed. I removed it after 7 days of use. Take about crap. It is slower than Java and bloated even more than iTunes + Outlook + Java, IMHO.