blocking webbugs

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Guest

I recently installed a browser utility that reveals sneaky web bugs and was
surprised how pervasive "omniture", "Revenue Science", etc. are. Omniture,
Revenue Science and the like are apparently marketing services that analyze
visitors to a website and then sell the info to marketers.

But they are very sneaky in how they do it. They camouflage their web bug
cookies to appear as if they were coming from the legit site rather than
from 3rd party sites and then send it instead to their own ips. Very sneaky
and hard to block.

These web bugs are often on very legitimate websites where it is necessary
to accept cookies. Library of Congress http://catalog.loc.gov/ search page
is such a legit site. Omniture and their ilk camouflage their web bug
cookies to appear as if they were coming from the legit site rather than
from 3rd party sites. Very sneaky. So blocking cookies is not the answer.
When I tried blocking 2o7.net cookies on one site, the website went to a
page asking me to accept cookies.

Is there a way to stop this camouflaged spying? Apparently it can be done
through the hosts file redirecting away from the spy ip addresses but I do
not know how to do that.

Thanks.

Jeff
 
I recently installed a browser utility that reveals sneaky web bugs
and was surprised how pervasive "omniture", "Revenue Science", etc.
are. Omniture, Revenue Science and the like are apparently marketing
services that analyze visitors to a website and then sell the info to
marketers.
But they are very sneaky in how they do it. They camouflage their web
bug cookies to appear as if they were coming from the legit site
rather than from 3rd party sites and then send it instead to their
own ips. Very sneaky and hard to block.

These web bugs are often on very legitimate websites where it is
necessary to accept cookies. Library of Congress
http://catalog.loc.gov/ search page is such a legit site. Omniture
and their ilk camouflage their web bug cookies to appear as if they
were coming from the legit site rather than from 3rd party sites.
Very sneaky. So blocking cookies is not the answer. When I tried
blocking 2o7.net cookies on one site, the website went to a page
asking me to accept cookies.
Is there a way to stop this camouflaged spying? Apparently it can be
done through the hosts file redirecting away from the spy ip
addresses but I do not know how to do that.

Thanks.

Jeff
Click to expand...

http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm
 
Did you miss the batch file to prevent slowdowns for large HOSTS
files? Or at least manually set the parameters? Sounds like it.
Click to expand...

Thank you for helping Twayne.

I saw the batch file but was scared to use that batch file because it turns
off the the DNS Client. Now I've done it and the system is back to speed.

I really hate to take up more of your time (but as long as the laptop is at
home) is there any downside to turning off the DNS client service? How does
turning it off speed things? Isn't it always needed to locate urls?

Should the DNS cache service also be turned off on a laptop used at home but
needing to access the internet?

Jeff
 
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