Tossing Your Cookies
Three times as many people are blocking 3rd party cookies – which are cookies set by an entity other than the site that you are visiting. The percentage of third party cookie blockers jumped from 4% to 12% last year, and have remained at that level – according to this Mediapost article on the Webtrends study. The ad networks are the largest practioners of 3rd party cookie setting – and if this cookie-cutting trend continues, their behavioral targeting offerings could be negatively impacted (although at 12% they’re probably not panicking).
But here’s what we want to know – could someone like… Eliot Spitzer… see 3rd party cookies as spyware/adware? Certainly, these cookies aren’t fouling up consumer machines like adware/spyware, but its not exactly an open kimono. It’s a question that dates back to the days of Doubleclick dominance – should consumers be "warned" that they are being tracked?
