What the fuck is a "Flash Cookie"?

kblessinggr

kblessinggr

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Sep 15, 2008
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Disney, others sued over allegedly spying with 'flash cookies' - ZDNet

A lawsuit filed in federal court last week alleges that a group of well-known Web sites, including those owned by Disney, Warner Bros. Records, and Demand Media, broke the law by secretly tracking the Web movements of their users, including children.

Attorneys representing a group of minors and their parents filed the suit Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, records show. The suit alleges that Clearspring Technologies, a software company that creates widgets and also offers a way to serve ads via widgets, is at the center of the wrongdoing.

Web site operators such as Disney, Playlist.com, and SodaHead are "Clearspring Flash Cookie Affiliates," the plaintiffs allege in their suit. Clearspring set "Flash cookies on (affiliate site) users' computers...online tracking device(s) which would allow access to and disclosure of Internet users' online activities."
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Uh... unless I'm missing something its perfectly normal to track visits within their own sites and affiliates. Did they install spareware toolbar or something thus why called a 'flash cookie' ?
 


Just guessing here but it sounds something like a flash banner that cookies you when it loads. Isn't this how "view-through conversions" are tracked?
 
A flash cookie is the same as a normal cookie, instead of it being stored in the browser though isn't it stored within the adobe flash player installation somewhere. If you want to delete them, use this https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623/

I know the reason a lot of people are pissed about the flash cookies is often times when just clicking "Delete Cookies" they aren't actually deleted because they are stored as flash objects if I am not mistaken.
 
1 of the reasons you get banned on ebay/gaypal if you make a lot of accounts. I recall reading somewhere that more than half of the top 1k sites use them.

Not as badass, but also Start Panicking!
 
I don't think it's the use of flash cookies that is the problem - it's more like a specific site is accessing cookies left by other sites eg. Disney.com inspects your machine and sees you've visited fisher-price.com and have been playing their flash games. Disney then serves up content saying "You like flash games? Try ours!!!". This *is* an invasion on privacy.. You guys are too busy jerking each other off to see it.
 
DreamMachine said:
I don't think it's the use of flash cookies that is the problem - it's more like a specific site is accessing cookies left by other sites eg. Disney.com inspects your machine and sees you've visited fisher-price.com and have been playing their flash games. Disney then serves up content saying "You like flash games? Try ours!!!". This *is* an invasion on privacy.. You guys are too busy jerking each other off to see it.
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how do you read cookies from other domains? I know you can do the semiworking javascript way but how through cookies?
 
Deliguy said:
how do you read cookies from other domains? I know you can do the semiworking javascript way but how through cookies?
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It's just that the flash ads, are on a lot of sites, those sites track the content you look at, then give you more relevant ads? I don't think it's exactly other domains, also flash cookies could be different from regular cookies.
 
Mikesev said:
AFAIK it can't be done, Adobe closed the hole a while ago.
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Not having read the article (that would be too easy!) I'm assuming that this lawsuit is when the hole was still unpatched (and there's a lag in the courts so it's only coming before a judge now) or they can still exploit some people because they don't use the latest flash version, etc.
 
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