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News Alert
from The Wall Street Journal
Major websites such as MSN.com and Hulu.com have been tracking people’s online activities using powerful new methods that are almost impossible for computer users to detect, new research shows.
The new techniques, which are legal, reach beyond the traditional “cookie,” a small file that websites routinely install on users’ computers to help track their activities online. Hulu and MSN were installing files known as “supercookies,” which are capable of re-creating users’ profiles after people deleted regular cookies, according to researchers at Stanford University and University of California at Berkeley.
Many of the companies found to be using the new techniques say the tracking was inadvertent and they stopped it after being contacted by the researchers.
Latest in Web Tracking: Stealthy 'Supercookies' - WSJ.com
News Alert
from The Wall Street Journal
Major websites such as MSN.com and Hulu.com have been tracking people’s online activities using powerful new methods that are almost impossible for computer users to detect, new research shows.
The new techniques, which are legal, reach beyond the traditional “cookie,” a small file that websites routinely install on users’ computers to help track their activities online. Hulu and MSN were installing files known as “supercookies,” which are capable of re-creating users’ profiles after people deleted regular cookies, according to researchers at Stanford University and University of California at Berkeley.
Many of the companies found to be using the new techniques say the tracking was inadvertent and they stopped it after being contacted by the researchers.
Latest in Web Tracking: Stealthy 'Supercookies' - WSJ.com