I’m not an overly paranoid person and think some of the people who feel the need to delete their cookies regularly are probably taking things just a little too far. If people are tracking me around the web and serving adverts I might actually be interested in - fair play to them! I have nothing to hide and nothing to worry about.

However I didn’t realise that Flash provides a much more dangerous type of cookie that really needs to be addressed.

This Local Shared Object can:

• Stay on your computer for an unlimited amount of time
• Store 100 kb of data by default, with an unlimited max
• Couldn’t be deleted by your browser
• Send previous visit information and history, by default, without your permission

The big thing I take exception to here are the last two points. Firstly I believe every technology should give the user the ability to opt out, for cookies the option to delete should be readily available even if for the most part it’s only used by a minority. But the second point is truly wrong - this kind of data should be limited as it is in other technologies such as JavaScript.

Come on Adobe just give an opt out button on the next version of Flash player or perhaps just make security settings a little easier to find for your average user?

The EU has requested a response from the UK government to clarify if Phorm breaches European data laws.

Of course the answer in Phorm’s current opt-out structure is yes. I certainly don’t understand why this seems to be so difficult to sort out. An opt-in system would work fine and actually if marketed correctly could be quite popular but the current system is tantamount to spying on web users. I’ve even said myself I’d be happy to opt-in but take exception to ISPs just making the decision for me - where will they draw the line in the future?

I’ve posted several times about this just because I think a system with a lot of potential has just been greedy and followed a route that is only going to antagonise people.

I encourage everyone to sign the online petition to stop ISPs breaching customers’ privacy on the Downing Street website.

I’ve never been entirely happy with some of the data protection laws floating about - some just don’t seem to contain any common sense at all. However if this system is allowed to slip through the net then clearly the whole issue of data protection is a farce.

I’ve been in the opinion that if we are heading for a recession then working within the online World is going to insulate us or even might improve business. The reason I’ve thought this is doing business online is generally accepted as cheaper than traditional methods. Also the ability to track success and therefore calculate the return on investment is so easy online. This covers all sorts of areas such as advertising, eCommerce or marketing in general. As businesses will need to justify their expenditure more during hard times it seems online is the sensible option.

However details that Google’s results weren’t as high as expected got me a little more thoughtful about if my original opinion was correct.

The worrying figure initially for me was “The number of paid clicks on websites operated by Google and its partners fell 1% from the first quarter”. Not quite what I was expecting. However I then thought this through further.

The number of paid clicks is what the actual customers are clicking. You’d expect with the possibility of a recession people won’t be shopping as much so the number of clicks would drop. This would also tally with the idea that PPC is going to become increasing competitive as businesses fight for these precious clicks.

At this time we haven’t had client’s reporting any noticeable difference in cost for clicks but I think it’s coming.

As always it’s going to interesting to see how things pan out.

It would seem that Google’s plan to make a little more money out of Adwords might be about to backfire, in the UK at least. It all stems from the fact that Google is now allowing other companies to bid on competitor’s company names in Adwords. Effectively this means Tesco could bid for the term Asda.

One small problem with this - it’s flying very close to Trademark law in the UK. Part of which means that a company must take steps to protect their Trademark. The first into the breach is Lastminute.com who look like they are going after Google in the courts. I can understand why Lastminute would do this as the holiday market is extremely competitive online and they need to protect the position they’ve built up.

The one issue is that commentators seem unsure if Google is the one that is breaking the law or if it is the companies bidding on their competitor’s terms. It’s a risk for Google but in the short term I think these terms could be extremely profitable for them as people try to protect their name online.