Cookie expiration dates
Privacy advocates mostly support ad serving without setting cookies on an individual's machine. Richard Smith, chief technology officer of the Privacy Foundation, has been a proponent of cookies with a short life span. In contrast to how the digital tags are used now, time-limited cookies could expire daily or monthly, essentially restricting the amount of data collected about consumer habits.
Two major ad-serving companies, DoubleClick and Engage, don't market "cookie-free" services, but both say that it's possible to offer it.
For example, DoubleClick said it has had a large-brand advertiser and an online federal Web site run online ad campaigns without using cookies. The company also doesn't use cookies in Germany because of local laws.
"We do it on a customer-by-customer basis, so the possibility exists with the technology. But with that you lose the ability to get detailed reporting and targeting capabilities," a DoubleClick representative said.
Still, Jupiter's Gluck said the government and others could have uses for the technology.
"But it's such a small segment of the market," she said. "And financial services firms have bigger fish to fry--they have to deal with the new anti-spam bill in Congress. That's what's worrying them more."
