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July 21, 2005
Flash Cookies: Get Rid of Them There's a lively discussion over at Slashdot on "Flash cookies," text files that can be set by sites using Macromedia's Flash player. The problem with these cookies is that web advertisers have figured out that they can use them to track people. The idea is that many users now know to toss their cookies. So, if you want to track someone, set both a standard web cookie and a Flash cookie on their computer. Chances are, they won't know about the Flash cookie. We at EPIC have posted a page on Flash cookies (officially known as "local shared objects"). You can stop people from tracking you by: The official way to address Flash cookies is to change your settings by visiting this Macromedia web page. One trick is that you can lower the allowed storage area to just 0kb. This will cause a box to appear whenever a website tries to set a Flash cookie. Users can get rid of the current Flash cookies and their tracking information simply going to the correct folder (see below) and deleting them. The Flash cookies are organized in folders according to the site that placed them, so users can choose which objects to keep. Flash cookies are stored in a special directory depending on the operating system on the client machine. They are arranged in directories according to the site that placed them on the computer (look for a file with a .SOL extension): * Windows C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player Firefox users can use Objection, a recently developed extension that adds a LSO deletion tool to Firefox preferences. The good news about this problem is that Macromedia doesn't like the fact that advertisers are trying to use Flash in this fashion. And, the advertisers claiming that Flash can be used for tracking appear to be inflating the capabilities of the Flash cookie.
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