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User Tracking With PIE
I found this over on slashdot today.
PIE ( Persistent Identification Element) is a technology that uses
Marcormedia Flash to track users without cookies. According to a survey at Jupiter Research, 58% of web surfers delete their cookies, so PIE allows an ongoing method of tracking those folks.
As a user I dont wish to be tracked in any sense, and the article links
to a page in Macromedia’s site which explains how to disable such
tracking. However, as a web devloper I have been involved in
several projects to report on web usage to better understand how our
users make use of our sites. So I have been on both sides of the
tracking table.
How do you other developers out there feel about such tactics.
04 Apr 2005 Simeon
All this talk of "pie" and "cookies" and you wonder why you love sweets! ;)
This has been in FullAsAGood and MXNA over the last two weeks:
http://www.markme.com/mtadmin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=10&search=cookies
The most ethical approach may be for any site to explain its cookies. I don’t recall any site doing this, however.
jd/mm
As a web developer, I thoroughly understand the need for cookies to overcome the stateless nature of HTTP. As a user, I don’t understand the public’s irrational fear of them. I’ve not ever heard of a serious security breach that was accomplished through the use of cookies. The fact of the matter is that today’s web applications can provide a better user experience with the use of cookies.
In the end though, it is the user’s perogative whether or not to allow cookies, so they have a choice: ease of use, or anonymity. I do agree that web sites should discose their use of cookies, similar to many sites that have a ‘legal’ disclaimer.
I used what I believe is PIE several years ago to store information for a dynamic MP3 application (my first Flash app! Whee!) I had a ‘Save’ button that would save the list of audio clips the user had built. Really quite handy, and people liked the feature. I agree with Damon in that cookies and PIE are useful to users and developers, as well as delicious, but the choice should be up to the user. Still, that only applies to scrupulous developers, so it’s nice to see that there is a method for removing PIE. (There’s a joke in there, but I leave it as an exercise for the reader.)