Flash, Session and Text Cookies

By Patricia Jordan

Most websites use cookies to identify visitors. Session cookies record session information such as your surname when you log in to access a restricted area of a site. Session cookies are temporary bits of information that are erased once you exit your web browser or turn your computer off. While most Internet browsers are initially set to accept cookies, you can change the settings to refuse cookies or alert you when cookies are being sent. Rejecting cookies on some websites can make those sites unusable.

A cookie is a piece of text stored by a computer’s web browser. It can be used for authentication, as an identifier for a server-based session and to store shopping cart contents and site preferences. Cookies can be encrypted for information privacy and data security purposes and may be set with or without an expiration date. Many websites use text cookies that are set with an expiration date. As text, cookies are not executable and do not replicate. Although cookies do not yet contain viruses, they can be used as spyware. Anti-spyware products provide warnings about cookies that can be used to track computer activity.



Third-party cookies are sent from a vendor’s site instead of the website being browsed. Third-party cookies can track visitors as they visit multiple domains within a website and across different websites. This functionality provides an analytics vendor with the ability to collate the individual’s activity on sites where they provided personal information with their activity on other sites where they thought they were anonymous. Most people block third-party cookies due to privacy concerns. Many companies that supply banner ads use third-party cookies to track site visitors.

Adobe Flash Player uses Flash cookies that contain cookie-like data that is stored as a file on a computer. The default settings in Adobe Flash Player do not seek permission to store these cookies. Flash cookies store more information than traditional cookies and are not deleted by cookie privacy controls in a web browser and are stored in a separate directory that can be difficult to locate. Search for .sol on your computer’s hard drive to find the location of these files. Flash cookies can also be used to reinstate traditional cookies that have been deleted. This practice is referred to as re-spawning.

Many commercial sites use Flash cookies for tracking purposes and to store information that is used for behavioural-targeted advertising. Each time you search for a product or service, visit a website or click on a banner ad or “paid search” keyword that activity is logged in a cookie that can be analyzed for later use by an advertiser to deliver targeted ads.

The price of your flight or hotel room can increase because of a cookie on your computer. The increase in price could be due to the cookie that was placed on your computer when you first visited a company’s website. Commercial sites use cookies to identify users and prepare customized web pages. When accessing a site that uses cookies, you may be asked to provide information such as your name and interests. This information is packaged into a cookie and is sent to your computer where it is stored for later use. Upon your next visit to the site, this information is accessed and used to present you with customized web pages and, perhaps, a higher price for a flight or hotel room. Before you book a hotel room or purchase an airline ticket online, erase the cookies from your computer if you have previously visited the site.

In the United States, several class-action lawsuits have been launched against media companies for their use of Flash cookies. It is illegal in many countries to track users without their knowledge and consent.

Although the Flash Player Settings Manager at www.macromedia.com allows you to manage settings for automatic notification, global privacy, storage and security, you will need to manually delete Flash cookies from your computer on a regular basis. The Global Storage Settings panel allows you to disallow Flash cookies from a specific domain by setting the storage space to “0 KB.” Although no data is stored, empty directories with the name of the domain will be created.

Ask the Techies: Removing Flash Cookies



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Amazon.com Flash Cookie Class Action Lawsuit
By Matt O'Donnell
Sunday, 06 March 2011 14:03

Amazon.com has been hit with a class action lawsuit for fraudulently circumventing users’ Web-browser privacy settings to collect personal information without their permission and sharing it with other companies.

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Interclick Faces Flash Cookie Class Action
By Matt O'Donnell
Friday, 17 December 2010 17:17

Interclick is the latest ad network facing a class action lawsuit over the now-infamous practice of “history sniffing” – using flash cookies and hidden code to secretly monitor the activity of online users and see what websites they've visited.

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Quantcast Clearspring Flash Cookie Class Action Settlement
By Sarah Pierce
Wednesday, 08 December 2010 13:41

Web measurement company Quantcast and widget maker Clearspring have agreed to settle two class action lawsuits alleging they violated people’s online privacy by using Flash cookies to track their information. The majority of the $2.4 million settlement – which still awaits court approval – will go toward privacy organizations.

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Privacy Lawsuit Targets Net Giants Over ‘Zombie’ Cookies
By Ryan Singel
July 27, 2010 | 4:06 pm

A wide swath of the net’s top websites, including MTV, ESPN, MySpace, Hulu, ABC, NBC and Scribd, were sued in federal court Friday on the grounds they violated federal computer intrusion law by secretly using storage in Adobe’s Flash player to re-create cookies deleted by users.

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Fox Digital and Clearspring Technologies Privacy Class Action Lawsuit Complaint Filed Over AmericanIdol.com Flash Tracking Cookies
September 8, 2010

A class action lawsuit has been filed against Fox Entertainment Group (“Fox” or “Fox Entertainment” or “Fox Digital) and Clearspring Technologies, Inc. (“Clearspring Technologies” or “Clearspring”) (collectivey “Defendants”) in the United States District Court for the Central District of California (Erica Intzekostas v. Fox Entertainment Group and Clearspring Technologies, Inc., Civil Action Case No. CV 10 6586 RSWL), alleging, among other things, that Fox Digital and Clearspring hacked the computers of millions of consumers who visited the website americanidol.com by allegedly planting rogue cookie like tracking code on users’ computers, according to a class action lawsuit news report.

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