Why does E-bay need so many cookies?

[dnjan]

Out of curiosity, I set my browser to ask me about all cookies before allowing them to be installed on my computer.

So when I went to E-bay to look at a watched item, there were over 40 cookie requests!
I understand 1 or 2 to deal with the sign-in stuff, but over 40?

 

[Edward]

I'd imagine there's one for sign-in, one for "most recently viewed", and probably at least one for each of any automated searches you subscribe to, for a start...

 

[dnjan]

So that leaves over 30 for unwanted advertising ...

 

[Flat Foot Floey]

40! 40 cookies!

 

[dnjan]

I wish it was that innocent ...

 

[Edward]

Probably they do se some for targetted advertising, yeah. I routinely ignore ads, so I don't know what ones appear on my ebay.

 

[Horace Debussy Jones]

Precisely,..they, and their many friends, want our money. I recently installed AVG Internet Security and it has an ad blocker built in which seems to work quite well for the cookie problem. I used to go from ebay to other web pages and would be inundated with ads for things I'd recently viewed on ebay, amazon, etc. Now they are gone.

So that leaves over 30 for unwanted advertising ...

 

[dnjan]

Interesting that I got 53 cookie requests when I went to the AVG Internet Security website to read about their product ...

 

[Retro Spectator]

I could be wrong, but I believe most of those cookies are tracking cookies. Tracking cookies track your browsing, and they sell it to companies. There is a way to get rid of ads if you use Firefox. It's an add on called Adblock Plus. I highly recommend it to anyone using Firefox.

 

[galopede]

Ghostery is another excellent add-on that allows you to stop all the trackers.

There are three on this page by the way, Facebook Connect, a social widget, Google Analytics, a tracker, and VigLink, an in text advertiser.

Gareth

 

[dnjan]

Unfortunately, Ghostery withdrew their Internet Explorer version about five months ago. As soon as they get it fixed, I'll download and install it. Sounds like a good program.