Web Cookies for Dummies

Readers of this blog have certainly heard of cookies, and you probably know a lot about how they work. So the first half of the nifty little video below from the Wall Street Journal will be old hat.

What may be of greater interest is the second half, that covers third-party cookies, which are placed, tracked, and used by third-party ad networks. A bigger take-away is the knowledge that these third parties can track cookies you have deleted, and by using "flash cookies" can even replace cookies that you have deleted!

Going beyond the primer, a couple of professional-level references appear below the video.



For your reference, here's a rather lengthy listing of
Ad Networks and Exchanges. And for those of you who are really interested, here's a June 2010 report on the "State of the Industry: Digital Ad Operations," which concludes "The greatest opportunities for survival in this new [ad serving] ecosystem -- and, in the end, securing leading position -- all relate to making the system itself less complex." As in Ad Serving for Dummies?! (A somewhat related story: Will Real-Time Bidded Inventory Change Media Planning and Buying Forever?)

And then -- ta da! -- there's this little goodie, which will give you literally hours of fascinating things to explore. Click on any of the "satellite" logo buttons (pearls) for that button's content (the WSJ "What They Know" is particularly intriguing). The tiny black "pearl" next to the center pearl will take you to a 2nd, hidden dimension - seriously! (And each of those have further dimensions...as I said, "hours of fascinating things").


And one more interesting Cookie video:



Then there's the FTC's List of Corporate Privacy Abusers Shows Advertisers Can't Be Trusted With Data Security and Microsoft's Role in the Erosion of Online Privacy.