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Sun 6 Jul, 2003 02:14 pm
I have Zone Alarm Pro. By default I have it configured to accept session and persistent cookies. I had noticed that every time I clicked on a link to the NY Times, I had to give my user name and password, even though I had checked "remember me", or whatever words to that effect.
I was clicking on a link to an article in the Times, when the login screen went on again. I capitulated, and changed my settings on Zone Alarm Pro so that I would allow third party cookies on the New York Times site. Voila! I got right in without logging in.
Now, what exactly are "third party cookies", and what are the security implications of allowing them to access my computer?
"Third Party Cookies" are simply cookies that originate from a site other then the one you are viewing. Ad servers use are the primary source of them. When you go to a the NY Times WWW site you get a cookie from their site plus cookies from whomever they have serving Ads on their site.
The NY Times is interested in which pages you've visited. Their advertisier's are interested in which ads you've seen. They don't want to keep throwing the same ads up to you, especially if you didn't click on one they've already thrown up.
Blocking 3rd party cookies does not usually hur the functionality of the site you are viewing.
And it's not like it's a dirty trick, often there is simply no way around it.
When people post pictures here the image loading from whatever site they hotlinked often try to place a 3rd party cookie.
Just block them or don't block them. No biggie.
Zone Alarm is then using quite a pathetic means of determining what are ads. If they'd get over the fact that avatars are images and that I have them linked to open a new page they might notice that the link is on site.
GRR. That kind of stuff is really stupid, they should look for a tracking URL or an offsite URL.
Anywho, ad blocking is secondary to them.
So I leave in the ads.
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