Personally, I don't object to cookies that aren't maintained over a certain period of time. If I'm shopping at bn.com, for example, I understand that a cookie would be useful. I object to cookies that have an expiration date that is longer that, say, tonight at midnight. However, I realize that there are some ways to profile a user that don't require my computer to do anything (store a cookie, send a referer header). My machine has an IP address, and it doesn't change ever. Even in cases where multiple people use the same IP address, this does fairly well (a network lab in a school -> all everyone in same school -> similar interests). Even in AOL's case, I would think that same IP -> same location -> quasi-similar interests. Of course, my guess is not so many people would object to profiling 'all the users coming from University of Southern Elbonia,' as that's conglomerated data. However, in many cases, this method (IP addresses) works perfectly, and in all cases (well, done properly) this is undetectable.
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Personally, I don't object to cookies that aren't maintained over a certain period of time. If I'm shopping at bn.com, for example, I understand that a cookie would be useful. I object to cookies that have an expiration date that is longer that, say, tonight at midnight. However, I realize that there are some ways to profile a user that don't require my computer to do anything (store a cookie, send a referer header). My machine has an IP address, and it doesn't change ever. Even in cases where multiple people use the same IP address, this does fairly well (a network lab in a school -> all everyone in same school -> similar interests). Even in AOL's case, I would think that same IP -> same location -> quasi-similar interests. Of course, my guess is not so many people would object to profiling 'all the users coming from University of Southern Elbonia,' as that's conglomerated data. However, in many cases, this method (IP addresses) works perfectly, and in all cases (well, done properly) this is undetectable.