ATS spies on you?

I've a question I'd like to ask. I found out if you visit this site, and then scan for spyware/trojans, you can find them right after you visit/browse around ATS. I think it has something to do with ads. Once you browse, ads will appear almost everywhere on page, therefore installing a tracking cookie into your computer from the ads without you knowing, right? What is this?



Any information or answers would be greatly appreciated.

[edit on 8-10-2007 by TheoOne]

Mod Edit: Resized image.

[edit on 8-10-2007 by chissler]

Above Top Secret is not "spying" on you. When you visit any site on the web, cookies from the site are going to be downloaded to your computer.

This is typical for any computer, logging onto any site. These cookies will turn up with any program that you scan your computer. Nothing to concern yourself with. Keeping up on the standard "housekeeping" of a hard drive, this should never cause you any problems.

Scans, disc clean ups, etc., you'll be fine.

I recommend CCleaner to help with this upkeep.

[edit on 8-10-2007 by chissler]

reply to post by chissler


Yeh ,but it is very rare you get a tracking cookie :/

reply to post by Disgustipated


I disagree 100%.

A member who is slightly more "technological savvy" can chime in here, but I can assure you, from my experiences, that this is a benign issue. Tracking cookies are very common. The average scanner, used appropriately, can remove these with little ease.

But why would ATS use tracking cookies
Only reason to use those is to track your search history for advertising purposes

I Agree that they are removed easily , but why are they there in the first place?

Hi,

I see you moved thread from ATS [Questions And Information] into here. Why, though? I believe I wanted to ask a question there. I don't need a computer help?

That's the question, Disgustipated. Why would they do that? I've witnessed that browsing on other websites, and I didn't get any tracking cookies.

edit: Thanks, I just noticed you edited your first post.

[edit on 8-10-2007 by TheoOne]

I think this will be of interest to you

Our Commitment To Privacy

Data Cookies:

From time to time data cookies will be set by various portions of the application code that runs the forums, features, games, and other specialty items running on our web servers. At no time is any personally identifying information (other than site username) ever stored in these cookies. The cookies are used to provide our application with page-to-page awareness of your user status and/or access privileges. Most of these cookies expire within days, however, some may expire in moths or years.

Advertising networks that serve advertising on AboveTopSecret.com may write their own cookies for the purposes of determining advertising frequency and relevance. We have performed reasonable diligence on all advertising networks authorized to serve ads on our websites to ensure that their data cookies are for this purpose and nothing more

[edit on 10-8-2007 by worldwatcher]

Also

All 3 cookies are ones to track your history to give you pop-ups on what you would like to buy

atdmt
tribalfusion
fastclick

..all variations of the same thing

Originally posted by Disgustipated
But why would ATS use tracking cookies
Only reason to use those is to track your search history for advertising purposes

I Agree that they are removed easily , but why are they there in the first place?

Spyware companies started calling cookies "Tracking Cookies" to make you afraid and convince you that you needed their software to remove those evil little things written by "unscrupulous" webmasters.

In reality, very few ad networks use tracking cookies to "track you search history for advertising purposes" and such use of "Tracking Cookies" is generally a scare-mongering fallacy. Our three advertising networks; ValueClick Media, Advertising.com, and TribalFusion.com do not record your browsing history.

Instead, for advertising, the cookies are used to manage the frequency of the advertising you receive. For example, if you visit lots of sites with TribalFusion ads, their cookie will:
- Ensure you don't see too many banners from one advertiser
- Rotate ads from the day's roster of available ads
- Stop showing ads if you've seen all there is to see in one day

In this way, the cookie stores a simple unique numeric identifier that defines your particular daily browser, but is not associated with you personally. By constantly comparing available ads with the ads your identifier has seen, you end up seeing a better variety of ads, or, no ads when you've seen them all.

In this example, at no time is your browsing history recorded. However, the marketing mumbo-jumbo of the anit-adware/spyware companies will make it seem like they must be recording your history in order to do what they're doing.

AboveTopSecret.com writes cookies as well... mostly to identify your user session after you log in, and ensure we know you're a logged in member from page to page.

It's important to know that one site cannot read the cookie written by another site. For example, even though it's all the same exact code on the same server, AboveTopSecret.com cannot read a cookie written by BelowTopSecret.com.

Hey SkepticOVerlord, thanks for the post and your explanation.

I have to say they look like they're illegal cookies, though. I think it would be better if ATS or BTS did not contain any ads at all. I understand if you're storing ads for the money purposes, but I also think you may want to be aware of what may be fishy or not, I don't know.

Frankly, I don't think AVG Anti-Spyware program is a mumbo-jumbo, it seems to be one heck of a legit program, but then I guess from reading your statements makes me put in a neutral position, lol. I don't know, man. But why would the program want to make it seem like they're recording you if when they're not, though?

Again, thanks S.O.

[edit on 8-10-2007 by TheoOne]

Originally posted by TheoOne
I have to say they look like they're illegal cookies, though.

What to you mean by "illegal cookies?"

I think it would be better if ATS or BTS did not contain any ads at all. I understand if you're storing ads for the money purposes, but I also think you may want to be aware of what may be fishy or not, I don't know.

I've been involved in Internet technology and online advertising since 1993... I have a fair degree of familiarity with which online advertising methods are fishy, or not.

I don't think AVG Anti-Spyware program is a mumbo-jumbo,

If they're placing cookies in the same category as "spyware," they're fooling you to entice you to keep using/paying for their software.

Ah, didn't know about your experience, man you must be from a long way, huh? I'll be damned, dude.

By "illegal cookies", I believe I meant that, do illegal actions against you or computer, ya know? The way the program made them look like one.

As for your last statement, that's a good sense, I think I understand much better now. I don't think I was aware that it was some sort of a marketing trick.

But lastly, can I state something off-topic? Speaking of internet technology and all, I think that would be cool to use internet without keyboards and such. Like if you put a vision (the way like you put a nightvision on) on, you can surf through the internet by your brain, therefore you would receive and send information by your brain, huh? Ok, now that is scary, haha.

Thanks, I guess I was just surprised by what the program found.

Originally posted by TheoOne
By "illegal cookies", I believe I meant that, do illegal actions against you or computer, ya know? The way the program made them look like one.

Cookies can't "do" anything. They're just simple text files (usually in a protected directory) that are only readable by the websites/domains that write them.

There ARE some message boards (who I will not mention here) that DO install spyware on your system every time you try to read a message. I was told that this is why a particular message board that I was on replaces the word SPYWARE with FLOWERS... No joke.

reply to post by TheoOne


Seems I opened a can of worms

www.abovetopsecret.com...

If .PDF files can be affected, what else can be?

www.brighthub.com...