Category Archives: Flash Cookies and LSOs

Developer Alert: Flash cookies and LSOs require precise disclosure

Posted on November 8, 2011 by Jim Brock

If you use anything but standard browser cookies to identify unique your users or their devices, you should be aware of the latest privacy enforcement action from the FTC. The FTC brought action against ScoutScan, an ad network, for inaccurate … Continue reading →

Posted in Best Practices, Flash Cookies and LSOs, Pros | Leave a comment

New Tracker List category:
Tracking By Device ID

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Jim Brock

Our goal is to make sure that the PrivacyChoice Tracker List remains the most comprehensive global database of tracking company information. To do this, we will continue to add new parameters to the dataset. Today I’m pleased to announce an important … Continue reading →

Posted in Flash Cookies and LSOs, mobile, Pros | Leave a comment

Something useful for the privacy wonks among us

Posted on March 9, 2011 by Jim Brock

Here’s a handy tool we use when researching tracking company privacy issues — a Google custom search for the 300+ companies in the PrivacyChoice Index. Loading Example: who talks about Flash cookies or local storage in their privacy policy? (Hint: … Continue reading →

Posted in Flash Cookies and LSOs, Folks, Pros | 1 Comment

Adobe missed the boat on privacy

Posted on January 13, 2011 by Jim Brock

On some level it’s admirable that Adobe is finally getting around to improving the control interface for how Flash stores local information, which has been abused in some cases to enable illicit user tracking. Adobe’s failure to make any progress … Continue reading →

Posted in Flash Cookies and LSOs, Folks, Pros | Tagged | Leave a comment

Transparency works: Specific Media kills the cache

Posted on September 11, 2010 by Jim Brock

Specific Media’s privacy practices have drawn more attention than they would have liked in the last several months. One issue highlighted in a prior post was SM’s use of local cache storage for unique user IDs — which, like a … Continue reading →

Posted in Flash Cookies and LSOs, NAI, Outliers, Pros | 2 Comments

Adobe’s small step forward on Flash-cookie control

Posted on January 29, 2010 by Jim Brock

As mentioned at today’s FTC Roundtable, Adobe has announced an important privacy improvement in Flash 10.1 (now in beta testing). Here’s the relevant passage from the release notes (PDF): Browser privacy mode (desktop only) Flash Player 10.1 abides by the … Continue reading →

Posted in Flash Cookies and LSOs, Pros | 3 Comments

NAI on Flash cookies: almost there …

Posted on January 14, 2010 by Jim Brock

The Network Advertising Initiative recently completed a comprehensive review of the practices of its members, culminating in its 2009 Annual Report. Given the recent criticism of how Flash cookies may be used to track user behavior (see prior posts), I … Continue reading →

Posted in Flash Cookies and LSOs, NAI, Pros | 2 Comments

VideoEgg dissembles

Posted on January 13, 2010 by Jim Brock

At first I was pleased to see that VideoEgg, a rapidly growing video ad network, updated their consumer privacy policy on a couple of important points (see our updated summary): They added a data retention policy: 12 months for log data … Continue reading →

Posted in Flash Cookies and LSOs, Outliers, Pros | 2 Comments