I'm going to go with you on the unintentional options here. But it probably means that someone at Target hasn't really worked out what is going on yet. I mean - there are some quite sophisticated tracking technologies going on there, someone should know that there are people arriving at these random searching pages from Google and then working out if they actually sell anything from it. If people then click through to the actual exercise bike pages and buy stuff, then it will probably look like it is profitable and will discourage them from removing it. Whilst you may think getting them pointed at the 'correct' landing page might lead to higher conversions, it may possibly be that by sending them to the search pages even for things they don't sell, they make more money, because they get visits for things they wouldn't do normally.

Although it would make more sense if they noidnexed those search results pages, to be fair.

The whole standfast up there is misleading. From the BBC article:

Currently some websites allow you to see articles that should be hidden behind a paywall barrier for free if you appear to come from Google. It allows them to get their pages indexed in Google and get those users to those pages even though they are hidden to everyone else. They can then try and persuade the users to sign up based on the fact that they can only see 5 pages. It works for the organisations because they have get another marketing source and it works for Google because they get to add more into their index and give their users what they want.

So overall nothing will be changing. Previously if you'd visited five pages on the site and found a sixth through Google news, then you'd be thrown a page asking you to subscribe. Now you get told on the Google News page that you are going to. I, for one, am not that impressed because I don't go to those sites anyway.

Unless Murdoch comes up with an ingenious way of reducing funding for the BBC. Say for example, striking a deal with the opposition politcal party to cover them in a complementary way in their press, in exchange for reduced funding of the BBC when they get into power.

Maybe we should ask Andy Coulson about that one (ex editor of News Of the World - a Murdoch title - and current 'Strategist' for the Conservatives). If he can buy out the UK's free source, he can buy out any other 'not for profit' options.

This is a great comment. However, in theory this has already been done through the Data Protection Act

Unfortunately companies don't appear to get prosecuted for not complying at the moment and the rule isn't particularly enforcable. Not least because this is a UK law (although it might also fall into EU law) and the majority of sites you browse aren't UK based.

I should have stated it in the submission: Cookies can't collect personal data. If you enter personal data into a website and allow them to market to you because of it, then it is your own fault if they then market to you because of it. Another site can't collect that personal data without the site you entered it into giving them permission. If they do it illegally they should be punished, but this is nothing to do with the cookie. This should be what the EU focus on creating new laws. The cookies thing won't stop it.

I apologise most humbly for my inability to read the date. Although it's better than last time when I had glaring typos in a submission. One day I'll get the hang of this :/

Quite right too. However most of them have tick boxes at a point that allow you to opt in and opt out. As someone whose seen the results of the tick boxes, I know far too many people are stupid and don't opt out. I always do.

*uses (damn beer at lunch time)

What you are suggesting is enormously complicated. You're suggesting that every single time a user clicks a link they have a Get/Post. You're also suggesting that the user has no control over their browser in terms of back/forwrad buttons.

Your also missing a large point. Most of the web doesn't sit in a secure environment where you need to post the page with details in it to get the next page. Most of it sits in a free for all content situation. The best that your servers (and hence your logs) know about it is that a user has requested a page (by clicking on a link).

If you are going to use javascript to track your users then you lose them inbetween pages because a new page will load with new javascript. To join those different javascript functions together you need to assign them a unique id. That unique ID sits on a cookie. Javascript itself can't track anything other than whatever is on the page at the time.

And before you ask. I do this on a website where we don't make any money. Our sole job is to give you advice. But if I can't tell if people stay on the site, use our tools, consume lots of our content - how can I ever persuade anyone to give me more money to build more of it? And if I can pesuade them, how do I know where to spend it?

Google Analytics users a first party cookie.

Thanks for the personal attack. Really appreciated it.

You do not make websites better by guessing what the user wants. Your own slashdot website probably has someone who looks at what people do, looks at how many people comment and generally advises on which are the most popular links. This helps them work out which stories are interesting to you and not a load of garbage. It also helps them work out what tags submissions should be grouped together based on the likelihood of users to read certain types of submissions.

Using cookise for advertising is completely different. You're using your cookies to make sure that either the money you spend gives you the biggest return (ROI). You're thinking about this the wrong way around though. You're thinking from your perspective as an advertiser (or someone who works for one). I, as a user, want to be able to click on ads of things I want to buy. Your job, as an advertiser of things I want to buy is to give me those ads at the right time and in the right place. You can't make someone buy something they don't want to. You can make it a lot easier for them so they don't get psised off and go to your competitor.

Not that this is the purpose of cookies - but how do you differentiate between real people and robots/spiders?

More importantly how do you tell, from your server logs, how many of your users who arrived from a certain referring source stayed on the site? Do you know what they did afterwards? Do you know if they then went and performed the function your site is aimed at? Do you know if they came back at a future date to do it? Can you do any of these things without cookies?

And no, you can't do any of these things with IP address+Useragent lookup - it's far too inaccurate.

Knowing where a user came from and what they searched for is a bad way of trying to optimise your site. I can name hundreds of situations where someone was proud that they'd generated a huge volume of visits (or page views if you weren't using cookies) of users that then left straight away because it wasn't what they were looking for.

Usability testing is very useful. Not using to usability testing to try and increase revenue is the death of any business.

Personal data almost always isn't stored on cookies. You give your personal data to a company. They probably don't even link that data up with what you do on the website via cookies. If that company then sells that information on to someone else or uses it for reasons that aren't ethical, that isn't down to cookies. That is down to the company being crap.

So how are you going to do this usability testing? Are you going to assume that everyone arrives at the home page and then navigates through your site? This is 2009, wake up to the real world. Most sites have 60%+ visits coming from Google in the middle of the site, to do any usability testing they need to know where they arrived to focus that usability. To get this information you need to have cookies. If you don't, you'll end up with a really nice home page, pointing to your good bits of content and you'll ignore most of your user base. This is the attitude that makes Murdoch think he can get away with putting all his content behind pay walls. It'll fail. If all EU content has to follow the new cookies rule, it will fail too and the only option you'll have in an EU country is to access non-EU content.

In the UK, fortunately you have a nice little website that tells you all about how to take ideas you have and turn them into money.

Fortunately, they also have a section on protecting your intellectual property that tells you how to do that as well (in terms of patenting, NDAs, Trademarks and Design right). I'm sure the processes aren't quite as straightforward as they look like they are here, but you get the point.

On a personal note - the question of whether to patent is a difficult one. In the internet era it would seem easier to exploit the innovation yourself before anyone else can come up with a similar, but slightly different idea that they then make a shed load of money out of.

Disclaimer: I work for BusinessLink