What do we do without cookies?

[Zaphod]

http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/1/3057265/internet-explorer-10-windows-8-do-not-track-default

About 51% of my May revenue had 0 days to sale. That means that without cookies, my earnings would be cut in half :/. This isn't a Prosp issue, but an industry one. I wonder how this will pan out.

[garydubbs]

in the short run it will pan out absolutely great for merchants and shite for us. in the long run merchants will have to increase commissions in order to keep affiliates sales coming in

[garydubbs]

also expect a rise in new cookie technology usage - flash cookies for example

good to get a discussion going on this, thanks Zaphod. i would like to hear prosperent's take on the situation?

[Zaphod]

I was thinking about flash cookies too. Like you mentioned though, this'll be a boon for merchants for a while, so they may be slow to adapt. Until ONE of them decides to use flash cookies or some other method... then they'll get all our traffic and the rest will fall in line. That's how I see it going anyway. Then, with all this push for this useless form of privacy, how long will flash cookies stand? haha

I find it so ironic that people freak out about a few cookies that reveal nothing about them while their governments read their emails, conduct warrantless wire taps, and remotely turn on their computer mics and web cams :D

[Prosperent Andrew]

DNT (Do Not Track) is a header field. On IE 10, it will be set to 1 by default. Currently, no one is legally required to comply with it. So until that happens, I don't see it as an issue. All other browsers have that option as well, how many of you are checking for it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Track

[Zaphod]

I'm not saying that the sky is falling, just wondering out loud how we'll handle the lack of cookies. It doesn't matter if we respect DNT, the merchants are likely going to be required to, sort of like a do not call list for telemarketers. That law just went into affect in the UK (all of EU?) requiring sites to request permission from the user to use cookies :D

[prosperent brian]

From what I have heard/seen, no one in the EU is following or planning to follow the new laws. It's mostly over zealous law makers that don't understand technology. There are alternatives though, and with billions of dollars on the line, you can bet that networks aren't going to take it lightly. As with anything, the industry will evolve and work around it. The PMA always takes a huge interest in anything like this that could potentially impact the industry.

[Zaphod]

I totally agree, I don't have any idea how a law like that even gets passed, bunch of luddites! :D. I had read too that very few were taking it seriously. I put it out of my mind until I was reading an article the other day on a UK news site and a saw a bar across the bottom of the screen asking if they could have my permission to use cookies :D