Overview
Summary:
A spyware cookie. Cookie is used by Engage AdBureau to track unique visitors to many different sites, and their "preferences."
Engage is an online marketing conglomerate that "...provides marketers with unparalleled targeting capabilities." Engage is a Premier Corporate Sponsor of TRUSTe.
Their platform includes four components: Engage Knowledge™ (a global database of "individual, anonymous profiles of online consumer behavior"), AdBureau™ (ad targeting campaigns based on Engage Knowledge profiles), AdServer™ (ad placement), and AdManager™ software that has "targeting and reporting features [that] provide one-to-one marketing opportunities - especially when combined with powerful precision profiling from Engage Technologies."
When the Federal Trade Commission approved the "Network Advertising Initiative's (NAI) Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Preference Marketing (OPM)" on July 27, 2000 (Ref: FTC Press Release: www.ftc.gov/opa/2000/07/onlineprofiling.htm), Engage overhauled it's Privacy section to assure users that "Engage's anonymous profiling technology can enhance the consumer's online experience without compromising privacy." As of August 2000, the Profiling Philosophy indicates the Engage Knowledge database contains over 70 million profiles.
TrustLabels: On July 14, 2000, Engage submitted an Internet Draft "...to the HTTP Working Group of the IETF that allows web servers to inform users of their privacy practices with regard to HTTP cookies. The proposal recommends that Web sites use "TrustLabels" to associate their Internet privacy practices with information exchanged through cookies."
"TrustLabels are an implementation of the P3P specification into browser cookies, and they conform to the Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS) standard. They tell visitors how a Web site will use information stored in a cookie or derived from a cookie. Users will have the ability to accept or reject the sites data practices." (Ref: www.engage.com/privacy/industry_privacy.cfm and The IETF Internet Draft - "HTTP Trust Mechanism for State Management" www.engage.com/privacy/ietf.htm.)
Category:
Tracking Cookie: Any cookie that is shared among two or more web pages for the purpose of tracking a user's surfing history.
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The "Clot Factor" is a measure of how much a pest "gums up" a machine by adding registry entries, files, and directories. As more objects are placed in a machine, manual removal becomes more difficult and more error-prone.
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Privacy Policy:
"Anonymous click stream information is collected for every visitor to this site. This includes pages viewed, date & time, and browser type. IP numbers are not stored, but are temporarily used to determine domain type and in some cases, geographic region. We do not make any association between this information and a visitor's identity. [...] The information is used by Engage to build anonymous behavioral profiles which are written to the Engage Knowledge database."
Profiling Philosophy: www.engage.com/privacy/profiling_privacy.cfm
"Effective online marketing without compromising personal privacy" This nine-point statement covers Engage's techniques and use of mined data. Read the Engage Profiling Philosophy...
Privacy Covenant: www.engage.com/privacy/commitment_privacy.cfm
"Since our founding in 1995, we've made privacy such a priority that we've become known as the industry leader. That commitment is demonstrated in the 10-point privacy covenant we've made with consumers." Read the Engage Privacy Covenant...
Privacy FAQ: www.engage.com/privacy/faq_privacy.cfm
The FAQ explains what information they're collecting, how they're collecting it, what's done with it, and why everyone should always trust them.
Opt-Out Option: www.engage.com/privacy/optout_privacy.cfm
In August 2000, the opt-out cookie previously available was replaced with a link to an executable file: http://cyberweb.engage.com/cgi-bin/optout.exe. Why should running an .exe file be necessary to place a cookie? Not recommended!
"Engage provides an opt-out program that replaces the Engage Knowledge identification code in your browser cookie file with an "opt-out" cookie. By doing this, the system can no longer uniquely recognize your computer. As a result, Engage Knowledge is unable to associate you to any profile information."
Privacy Contact: privacy@engage.com
Detection and Removal
Automatic Removal:
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