Overview
Summary:
A spyware cookie. Cookie is used to track unique visitors to many different sites, and their "preferences."
Using cookies and clickstream data, AdForce is "Enabling online publishers and ad agencies to exploit the full potential of the Internet for interactive marketing." In combination with a service called TrackForce™, AdForce clients can "Track patterns as the consumer moves from ad banner click-through to a transaction, then exits the promotional site."
Category:
Tracking Cookie: Any cookie that is shared among two or more web pages for the purpose of tracking a user's surfing history.
Similar Pests:
Origins
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Clot Factor:
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.
Countries Affected:
Operation
Risks
Privacy Policy:
Includes statement that "AdForce will never share personally identifiable information (such as your name, address, and telephone) that you provide about yourself through our website without your express permission. Further, AdForce does not and will not store this personally identifiable information about you unless you specifically request that we do so."
AdForce is strategic partners with Engage (profiled separately on this website). "Some of our customers specifically request that we provide the non-personally identifiable information collected in connection with their campaigns to Engage Technologies (www.engage.com) to create interest profiles. No information is provided to Engage unless the customer has contracted with both AdForce and Engage to create such interest profiles."
Ad Delivery Privacy: www.adforce.com/home/privacy/PrivacyPolicy.html and www.adforce.com/home/privacy/AdDeliveryPrivacy.html
Includes statement that "At no time during the ad delivery process do we collect any personally identifiable information, such as your name, street or email address, or phone number. In the course of serving ads, AdForce collects certain non-personally identifiable data by placing a 'cookie' (a small file containing a unique, randomly selected alphanumeric tag) on a consumer's computer hard drive."
"The non-personally identifiable information collected in connection with a cookie includes: IP Address of the machine (browser/proxy) connecting to AdForce, browser type (i.e., IE 3.x, etc.), operating system (i.e., Macintosh, PC, etc.), date and time a particular ad was served, advertisement tag (placed by a website on a web page to call up an ad)."
"This data allows us to measure and report information to our customers, such as the number of browsers who see an ad, the number of people who click on an ad, and how many times we delivered an ad. We may aggregate and use this data internally for statistical and reporting purposes."
Opt-Out Option: Opt-out cookie is available at www.adforce.com/home/privacy/OptOutOption.html
Privacy Contact: privacy@adforce.com
Detection and Removal
Automatic Removal:
PestPatrol detects this.
PestPatrol removes this.