I’m not bothered about cookies and privacy intrusion, Firefox privacy feature deletes all cookies on close

You know those cookie opt-in/opt-out information bars that you regularly spot when you surf around (mostly big) websites? Here’s one from thesun.co.uk. The fuzz is that cookies can be used to identify users on subsequent visits, therefore a possible privacy invasion.

Firefox has a feature in the privacy section that probably has the potential to wreak havoc on all services depending on cookies for tracking like Google Analytics and hundreds of other advertisement services.


Note the screenshot is taken from a Norwegian localized Firefox

The feature deletes all local cookies when the user closes Firefox. Cookie dependent trackers would then unsuspectibly supply new cookies for me everytime I visit a site on subsequent visits and treat me as a new user everytime. I imagine this could skew tracking statistics and effectively render the numbers even less reliable than they are in the first place.

Note: By the way Google has thoughtfully developed a Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on which means the cookies won’t be set in the first place. Use it if you care:)

What’s your thoughts on all this and that? Feel free to share 🙂

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