Newest releases of web browsers make NOT accepting cookies the default, or make it much easier for people to turn it off. Many Internet purchasers don't know they are accepting cookies and if they now start seeing the 'Do Not Track' option, we could be screwed - I think.

Here is the article from wired magazine (online)

Add-On Gives Power and Nuance to ‘Do Not Track’

(I can't post URl yet)

Any thoughts?

no .

Even Obama has found time away from the economy and the crisis in MENA, Japan to press down hard on privacy laws on the internet - this is just the beginning my friend.

Affiliate marketing is sooooooo much more than that!

The most successful ones I've seen are those who have built up thousands of opt-in email

Never believe such crap stories.

and you just need all the sites to make it so you have to have cookies turned on to view content.

No way. There'll always be a way.

lol cookieless tracking. problem solved

I doubt that will happen, that will force companies like eBay and everyone else rethink consumer tracking strategies little tweeks in the game like that spill over into big companies plates and they won't have it not without a fight at least.

Well I've noticed that Hotmail wont work without cookies enabled.
So as long as you're focusing on Bing Sales you're gravy.

Added to which, most affiliate companies are set to move onto computer finger prints (which determine your identity based upon Java script, screen resolution, colours on screen, operating system etc) or Javascript cookies, which weren't mentioned at all in the recent EU ruling, so should be fine for the next 4 years

Half the Internet wouldn't work without cookies. Every website with a "remember me" option? Every website that needs to retrieve past data for any reason? They're all just gonna stop working, huh?

There will always be way out. Most internet resources also don't work properly unless one has a cookie enabled. In addition, most internet users do not know what cookies mean. Therefore, they would prefer to have the necessary browser settings in place in order to get what they want from the internet

i doubt this is the case.. nevertheless let's say in a universe this is accepted , there is a method known as cookie-less tracking. so affiliate programs would have to switch to that. look it up

Google would go CRAZY.
Their whole advertising targeting is based on cookies....
(or am i misinformed??? Why is it that after i googled "BMW Leasing" once, i get BMW leasing adds on EVERY page i go to that has google adds....)

The internet works just fine without cookies, including hotmail. The trick is to accept cookies and delete them a second afterwards. This defeats 99% of the checking routines that simply try to write a cookie and when they succeed you're in.

And you remain logged in because the text file cookies are just copies of the browser's internal cookies which are lost when the browser is closed.

I don't think anyone can make an aff sale through such users no matter what. Aff sites do shave but sometimes they are indeed innocent for the above reason.

well, i dont think it's over...

Only shitty programs still rely on cookies anyway. Most modern programs (eg. programs that use NATS) base their tracking on sessions with cookies as a backup only. Cookies are too open to abuse or being dropped.

Originally Posted by angelas111

and you just need all the sites to make it so you have to have cookies turned on to view content.

This is true.

Plus, some form of tracking is necessary to keep a lot of the "ease-of-use" functionality of many websites. The trend might be going in the direction of "MY PRIVACY IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD" but people are also extremely lazy and want everything handed to them. I'd expect something to replace cookies because of that.

Also, list building and manual contracts.

dont you hve another thread about this exactly somewhere....?

That won't stop anything. Campaigns can still be passed in a string.