[UPHPU] shame on you Adobe

[cole at colejoplin.com]

You are correct about the shared object. But if someone is browsing  
away from the page, the most they will get is the next url, and  
perhaps some tricky js to Flash hand offs. It's not that much more  
useful than the standard tracking of what Omniture or Google Analytics  
would do. There's nothing beyond that domain.

But, I can see what you mean, because at least you can nuke a cookie  
from the browser, and clearing the Flash memory is not obvious to the  
user. It *could* work like a session keeper, or keeping the next  
browser url. I agree that Adobe should honor the browser cache clearing.

-- Cole

Quoting Wade Preston Shearer <wadeshearer.lists at me.com>:

> On 12 Aug 2009, at 11:53, cole at colejoplin.com wrote:
>
>> This is old news. It's meant as a developer thing only, as in RIAs   
>>  caching components. It's not tracking anyone's browsing data.  
>> There   is no big brother here.
>
> That's not true from what I have read. Please correct me if I am
> wrong. What I read is that you can store any string of text in the
> object similarly to what you can do with normal browser cookies. If
> that is true then there is more to it than just RIAs caching
> components. You are right that the shared object itself isn't tracking
> anyone's browsing data, but web developers could use that "cookie" to
> track people. I used to work at Omniture. I understand tracking user's
> browsing patterns, user profile marketing, and dynamic, profile-
> optimized content. All the web author needs is a unique key. This was
> mostly the point of the article that I linked to in the first place.
> There are websites that are now reinstating the user's "session" even
> if they have cleared their cookies by means of a "backup" ID that they
> have stored in the flash object.