Ad network at center of third Flash Cookie lawsuit
A third suit has been filed over the use of Flash cookies, a type of cookie that's harder to delete than the more familiar browser cookies.
The suits allege that the companies that use them - in this case, Specificmedia, an Internet advertising company - are violating federal and state privacy and computer laws.
The first suit, filed in July, targeted large media Web sites, including ABC and Hulu. It alleged that the company used "zombie cookies," a technology created by Quantcast that allows site owners to use a storage compartment in Adobe’s Flash player to recreate Web tracking files after they’ve been manually deleted by the user.
Then, earlier this month, the lawyers sued Disney, Warner Bros. Records and others for using a widget technology created by Clearspring Technologies that allowed them to track the Web activity of users, including children. The Web site operators were "Clearspring Flash Cookie Affiliates."
The suit, filed last week in California, seeks class action status. All three were filed by Texas lawyer Joseph Malley, a privacy advocate attorney who has taken on some of the more high-profile privacy cases recently, including Facebook’s $9.5 million settlement over its Beacon advertising program and a settlement with Netflix over privacy issues raised as part of a promotional contest.
This third suit was was first reported yesterday on Wired's Epicenter Blog, which also uploaded a pdf of the suit.