Persistent Identification Elements (PIE) and Internet Privacy
The struggle between Internet marketers and viewers who wish to keep their Web surfing habits private has escalated again. The latest technological trick of Internet marketing is called persistent identification element, or PIE.
Marketers want to know what people look at when they are online so that they can target their Web ads better. They want to "personalize" the ads that you see and they want to find out which ads attract the most attention. A primary method of obtaining this sort of information has been the tracking cookie. However, more and more computer users are blocking or deleting cookies. Many of the leading anti-spyware programs also delete tracking cookies. To combat this consumer resistance, marketing firms are devising new approaches.
To read the rest of the topic:PIE and How It Works
To evade standard methods of cookie control, a method called persistent identification element (PIE) is being tried. The current version uses a feature of the Macromedia Flash MX application called local Shared Objects. Use of Flash movies on Web pages is widespread and a very large majority of Web viewers have Flash players on their systems. (Macromedia says 98%.) Internet Explorer 6 comes with a Flash ActiveX component and plug-ins are easily available for the other major browsers.Thus most Web viewers can be reached by this new method.
Skipping the technical details, here is a brief idea of how the method works. When a Web page contains an ad in Flash format that is appropriately coded, a file can be placed on the viewer's computer that functions much like a cookie. However, none of the present standard methods of cookie control will detect the file. This type of file has the extension SOL and can be located in a variety of places, usually a sub-directory of
\Documents and Settings\{User Name}\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\
Finding Files Used for PIE
Managing PIE Files
Summary
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