Escalation in the cookie wars

Matt Marshall in today's San Jose Merc: Escalation in the cookie wars. New technology emerges to evade growing trend of erasing data-gathering files.

... Now there's a different batch of cookies -- they're newer, they're tougher and they stay around a lot longer. They come with PIE, or Persistent Identification Element, a little-known technology that evades cookie deletion. PIE hides within a little-known corner of your computer. And PIE recreates itself even after a user deletes a cookie by making a backup copy.

Introduced just two weeks ago, PIE is the latest escalation in the cookie wars, and it's already creating a controversy among Web site operators and other industry players. Many are outraged, saying such aggressive tactics will spur users to distrust all cookies, and take drastic measures that will worsen the Web experience. ...