Privacy

[BEagle]

A well-known aviation magazine has the following internet privacy policy:

"We make use of cookies to gather valuable information about how users move around this website. This enables us to understand how the site is used and to help us make improvements. Please visit the website of our third party supplier *** for more information on their use of cookies to track user activity on this site.

The information we gather by use of cookies can include personally identifying information, were (sic) this is the case encryption is used to mask the data. You have the option to refuse these cookies. If you choose to refuse our cookies you will only be able to use the free content areas of this web site and we will not be able to tailor the content to your preferences.

The third party companies who sell and provide advertisements to the site and host our contacts database make use of cookies for the purpose of serving and targeting advertisements more effectively. For more information about these cookies, how you can opt out of receiving them and how this will affect your use of this website, please visit the websites of our third party suppliers ****."

Personally, my reaction to such a policy is to avoid this website altogther. The covert gathering of user activity by these snoopers is something whixch should be 'opt in', not 'opt out'....

[Memetic]

Most sites use cookies and have done for years, I believe PPrune does to remove the need to log in each time you visit.

A lot of sites have just put up notices like this to provide butt cover with respect to recently enacted EU data protection / privacy directives - the are not gathering any more info but just telling you what they have done for years.

Most of them are using a standard bit of legalease that covers a lot just in case, but which bears littel relation to what they actually collect or actually do with what they collect.

The comments about third parties in the blurb here do point to a bit more than the basics of adding user convenience and repeat visit counting though. Might be interesting to have a look at who the third parties are and what they do.

Memetic.

[FJJP]

I agree that cookies raise a privacy issue. I routinely clear cookies, keeping the ones like from PPrune that retain things like passwords, etc.

One other thing - with Win 98 and 2000, I routinely cleared temp internet files which build up over time. However, with Win XP, I haven't found any temp files. Does Win XP save temp internet files? Also, how can you check what's been recorded in the Index.dat files? There is altogether too much info being recorded by commercial software these days...

[Blacksheep]

The temporary files are in the documents & settings folder as are the cookies, but you'll need to mine deeper into the administrator files. You can still delete them easily from the browser though. Assuming you use Internet Explorer, go to 'Tools - Internet Options' then under the 'General Tab' click the 'Delete Files' button under the 'Temporary Internet Files' section. You can clear the history and delete the cookies here too, but it gets rid of all of them including the good ones. I'd use the 'My Computer' function to do that bit.

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Through difficulties to the cinema

[BEagle]

All Programs, then Accessories, then System Tools, then Disk Cleanup seems to work for me - but Temporary Internet files seem to keep coming back.