Why am I getting tracking cookies from your site?

In this excerpt from
Answercast #101, I look at why we need cookies to create interactive
features on the internet. They really aren’t as bad as many spyware programs
make them out to be.

“Tracking” cookies from your site

Well, absolutely right: the word “tracking” I believe is completely
inaccurate in 99% of the cases. Nobody is tracking you; nobody is tracking
me.

Now… vid.askleomedia.com? To be honest, I’m very surprised that there’s a
tracking cookie, or any kind of a cookie, associated with that domain. That
domain I set up specifically to be cookie-free. Not because cookies are bad, but
because there’s a bit of a performance improvement in not having cookies for
some of the things that come down from that site.

Vid.askleomedia.com is basically where I put my video files. If you’re
looking at a video that I’ve produced and posted myself, that’s the server
that it’s coming from. In reality, it’s a content delivery network.
It’s actually coming from a server that is as close to you as possible – but
there shouldn’t be cookies associated with that and that’s on my list of things
to do.

Spy programs showing tracking cookies

I need to figure out what’s going on there… but the real crux of this
question (and the reason that I’m addressing it) is the question you asked here,
“How did these spy programs determine a tracking cookie from a regular
cookie?”

There you have it. There is no definition. There is no difference. There is
no technical way to determine whether a cookie is being used for tracking or
for something else.

Remember a cookie is nothing more than a little piece of information that is
kept on your computer and then sent back to the domain that it was placed there
by. So if, for example, Ask-leo.com places a cookie on your machine, then the
next page you visit or the next time you visit ask-leo.com that cookie is
automatically sent with the page request.

Cookies help you interact

That’s how sites like Hotmail and Gmail know that you’re logged in and don’t
force you to login for every single page.

And you’re right; it’s also how advertising networks track your activity
over your use of the internet. That’s where the term “tracking cookie” comes
from. The cookies that they place are used for a form of tracking.

Now again, even there the word sounds a lot worse than it really is. They’re
not tracking you specifically. They’re not tracking me specifically. They don’t
know who you and I are specifically. What they’re doing is they are simply
keeping track of what places this particular computer has visited.

Delivering relevant ads

This allows them, in the case of advertising, to make sure that they’re
showing you ads that are more relevant to the kinds of things that you like to
look at.

If you are a sportsman and you visit a number of sport sites, then that
means the advertising networks know you’re probably more interested in sports
merchandise than you are maybe in lingerie. On the other hand, if you’re out
looking at Victoria’s Secret or other kinds of places that sell lingerie,
you’re probably not going to be seeing a whole lot of Nike ads or football ads
or whatever kinds of ads.

In my case, I see ads for server hosting companies all the time. Why?
Because it’s something that I look at. There are sites that I visit on a fairly
regular basis that are all about server hosting, web hosting. As a result, the
advertising networks think I’m interested in that kind of stuff. You know what?
They’re right!

Tracking cookies not that evil

Now. They don’t know that it’s Leo Notenboom at the other end of that
computer!

They could… but you know what? They don’t. It’s just not worth it. You and
I as individuals just aren’t that interesting.

The real problem here is that some anti-spyware tools (apparently
SuperAntiSpy that you’re using) are raising a red flag about tracking cookies.
And you know what? There’s no red flag to be raised. There really isn’t.

Tracking cookies are not the evil things that some people claim that they
are. I really don’t think that there’s an issue here. I really don’t think
there’s an issue with tracking cookies in general.

Ask Leo! is not tracking

I personally have no interest in tracking anybody even though there
are cookies that get placed by my site.

The site places exactly two different kinds of cookies. When you visit
Ask-Leo.com, you will get cookies from advertisers who display ads on the site.
Like I described earlier, that’s all about making sure that they’re targeting
the ads as best they can.

The other cookie that gets placed on your computer, when you visit my site,
is a cookie that allows it to remember who you are in the comments form. If you
take a look down there, there’s a thing that says, “Remember me.” What it’s
remembering is your email address and your name. If you say, “remember me” that
stuff gets placed in a cookie and that’s it.

So, I’m not interested in tracking you. The cookie that gets placed is on
your machine? It’s there to help fill out the form the next time you decide you
want to comment – that’s all it is.

So, my recommendation is, in reality, do nothing.

If SuperAntiSpy has a way to turn down its sensitivity to cookies – great.
Do that. But I really wouldn’t worry about this scenario. Yes, I need to take a
look at vid.askleomedia.com as to why it might be dropping some cookies,
because it’s not supposed to – but even then, I really don’t think there’s an
issue here.

(Transcript lightly edited for readability.)