NWA-PCUG Newsletter Article, May 2011
President' Corner
by Wes Eckles, President
alert@ieee.org
(click to email author)

If you browse the WEB your computer will be filled with small files called tracking cookies. What do they do? Tracking cookies are files deposited onto your PC's hard drive as you browse the Internet. Regular cookies work the same way, but unlike those harmless cookies that are designed to remember your account information so that you can use websites more easily, tracking cookies may collect and report information about your web browsing habits. Tracking cookies monitoring your web browsing habits may tell advertisers some of your personal information. Tracking cookies, even when installed without malicious reasons, may put your personal and financial information at risk. It is a good idea to remove tracking cookies.

Marketing companies can learn a lot from tracking cookies. If you fill out a form online with your contact info and real name, enter a contest or sweepstakes, or click an ad to buy a product, it's possible Internet advertisers using tracking cookies know your real name, your Internet Protocol (IP address), and other information about you.

Online marketing and advertising companies that hold this identifiable information about you and your web browsing habits may sell your personal info to other companies, or merge their information about you with other companies' information about you. A tracking cookie may seem harmless, but in reality some tracking cookies allow companies to know quite a lot about your online and offline habits and lifestyle, and how to find you.

These tracking cookies, also called Spyware, can be removed by a good anti-malware utility such as the top rated Webroot Internet Security 2011. After you have browsed the WEB run your anti- spyware utility. Most tracking cookies will be detected and quarantined. The cookies will be back each time you browse the WEB. Here is a list of tracking cookies that are most likely be found on your PC: 207.net, apmebf, doubleclick, mediaplex, serving-sys, and yieldmanager. Some cookies can be permanently blocked or opted out for a certain WEB site.

Adobe places the 207.net and omtrdc.net cookies on you PC that collect data for Adobe's customers. Google uses the doubleclick cookie to display interest-based advertising. You order a book and Google will suggest other books you may be interested in buying. Search Google for this cookie and you will find instructions for opting out of the cookie. Ad.YieldManager.com cookie can be permanently blocked. Google search for yieldmanager to get instructions.

For your information - From PCWorld: "Personal Virus: A British researcher says he deliberately infected his body with a computer virus. No clear proof yet of a link between that and his sudden desire to join a zombie bot army."

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