I thought I would pass this along. Just downloaded it and am looking at it. Interesting application for Win 95/NT users. The download page starts at http://www.luckman.com/anoncookie/anoncookie.html Lou Zirko

Freeware Helps Keep Your Cruising Confidential

by Brian McWilliams, PC World NewsRadio

June 24, 1997 Concerns about Internet privacy are running hot since the recent privacy hearings sponsored by the Federal Trade Commission. New laws as well as technology standards may soon come to the assistance of Net users. In the meantime, a California company is releasing a freeware tool to help users gain some control over their online privacy.

Luckman Interactive today posted a utility for Windows 95 and NT called Luckman's Anonymous Cookie for Internet Privacy.

According to chief technology officer Marco Papa, the beta software works with browsers from Microsoft and Netscape. It installs in your Win 95 system tray and enables you to switch in and out of "anonymizer mode," that is, controlling whether or not a Web site can write to and read your browser's cookie file. This file is used by some sites to personalize their content and in some cases to track your activities online.

"We save all your cookie files and replace them with either an empty folder or a file that can't be overwritten," explains Papa. "When you turn cookies back on, you actually replace whatever may have changed with your original cookie files."

Luckman's Anonymous Cookie program is actually technology that was developed for the company's WebSweep utility, which is scheduled for commercial release later this summer. But Papa says the firm decided to pull the cookie piece out now to give users some much-needed control over online privacy.

Dierdre Mulligan of the Center for Democracy and Technology says cookie files are at the heart of many privacy problems on the Net. Her group is especially critical of companies like DoubleClick, which she says violates the spirit of the cookie concept by passing user information on to third parties. She welcomes tools like Luckman's, but she notes that add-ons don't help protect the millions of less experienced Net users.

"If you really want people to have an easy-to-use way to protect information or to control what their kids are going to see on the Net, build it into the browser. Everybody has one, and they don't have to go buy an extra program or figure out how to install it," Mulligan said.

Brent Luckman, chairman of Luckman Interactive, said that's a great idea, but he doesn't see much impetus for browser makers to give up access to valuable marketing information.

If you're a privacy guerrilla, you can grab your free copy of the Anonymous Cookie program from Luckman's Web site.

Lou Zirko Key fingerprint =46 F8 6A 89 F1 4A 74 AB 2F 60 21 E3 FB 21 E4 E4 "Were all bozos on this bus", Nick Danger, Third Eye