IP: watch the snoopers

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

From: jod () ccat sas upenn edu (James O'Donnell)
To: farber () cis upenn edu (David Farber)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 07:24:23 -0400 (EDT)




Netscape Communicator (a.k.a. Netscape 4.0) lets you watch the people who
are watching you.  Click on Edit/Preferences/Advanced and check the box
for "Warn me before accepting a cookie" and then lead your normal WWW life
for a day or two.  You will be amazed at the number of times that it pings
you to tell you of information being collected about your habits.  Even
banner ads on Yahoo pages, e.g., are checking up on you.  After a couple
of days it will start to drive you nuts, and you can either turn off your
own surveillance or, by clicking "Disable Cookies", turn off theirs.


Jim O'Donnell
Classics, U. of Penn
jod () ccat sas upenn edu


Subject: p.s.
To: farber () cis upenn edu (David Farber)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 07:26:38 -0400 (EDT)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23-upenn3.1]


Of course if you turn off cookies and then want to go to www.msn.com,
you'll get this shirty response:


        You have reached the MSN.COM site. This site requires your browser
        to support tables, graphics, and it must accept cookies. 


        Unfortunately, your browser does not appear to support one or more of
        our required features. Please download a browser like Microsoft
        Internet Explorer that supports the multimedia needs of this site, 


jo'd