On Wed, Feb 02, 2000 at 09:37:30AM -0800, Bill Stewart wrote:
> >>Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2000 16:29:23 -0800
> >>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >>From: Mark Laubach <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >>Subject: just do it yourself doubleclick opt_out
> >>
> >>[Verified direction. Use this one from inconvenient.net.]
> >>
> >>I just surfed www.doubleclick.net and descended down to the opt out
> >>option and it seemed to work ok. Maybe they changed the link so
> >>people would have to go diving at their site?
> >>
> >>Anyway, you can opt out of doubleclick with your text editor. Follow
> >>these directions to edit your cookie file.
> >>
> >>I did the opt out from doubleclick earlier this week. Here's the replaced
> >>line in my Netscape 4.7 cookie file from my Powerbook:
> >>
> >>.doubleclick.net TRUE / FALSE 1920499172 id OPT_OUT
[info on how to edit doubleclick cookies from Netscape
cookie files deleted]
Unfortunately that won't help you protect your identity from
the other sites besides Doubleclick which track users.
Are you going to opt out of every new one that springs up (if
they even offer the option to do so)?
What you need to do is to block all cookies except from sites that you
want to accept cookies from. You can do this in Netscape by turning on
the "ask me before accepting a cookie" option but since many
cookie-using sites send a cookie for every HTTP connection (and they
make a lot), you wind up having to click "no" 20 or 50 times for every
page. Obviously no one will actually do that, so people wind up
accepting all cookies.
Robert Krawitz and I wrote a program called "cookie jar" which lets you
reject all cookies except those from sites that you want to accept
cookies from. You don't have to click on anything, once it's set up
it's automatic. It also lets you reject web pages, which is handy for
blocking banner ads. It'll filter out scripts (i.e. javascript and
activeX) and will block your browser from sending identifying info to
servers. It's an open source project written in perl, contributions are
welcome.
http://www.lne.com/ericm/cookie_jar/
--
Eric Murray www.lne.com/~ericm ericm at the site lne.com PGP keyid:E03F65E5
