Google tracking cookie spans AdSense, DoubleClick

How

can they track my habits when...

*.doubleclick.* is blocked at my firewall and none of Google's cookies are accepted?

Firefox, NoScript, Adblock, CS Lite and RefControl... Track that Google.

and...

...a custom hosts files that directs all AdSense and DoubleClick traffic to 127.0.0.1

Re: How

Perhaps they just log your IP addy and date/time of access then cross reference it to your ISP's dirtybase of what they gave you at the time.

@camilla

Would that be the dynamic IP address which I make sure changes every day by rebooting my router?

I wouldn't imagine my ISP would divulge this information without a court order anyway, although more appalling abuse of customer privacy has happened in the past... BT/Phorm.

And then there is always the ProxySel addon for times of extreme tinfoil hattedness.

At least they're not Phorm

^^ see title.

@Ben

Sorry no cookie, pun intended ;-)

Like Zerofool2005 my hostname changes with IP. The IP address itself forms part of the hostname.

naifs

>> Firefox, NoScript, Adblock, CS Lite and RefControl... Track that Google

No problem..

1) In one browsing session there are few chances you change your ip address. A lot of tracking and targeted ad serving can be done just with this. Ads must not be served via javascript. This is the most used way at this time, but direct injection in the source code is perfectly possible, and is done very well by several "tools" sold to ISPs.

2) Google is a search engine. A good one. You can't hide what you search. You are using google, they know what you search, they know who you are.

3) Persistence other sessions. There are ways for this beyond browser cookie and even public IP address. At first, your ISP knows who you are. It can use the information, or resale it. For example your isp could resel to google a unique " anonymous " identifier and its public ip addresses other time. Or better, google could sell your ISP a tool crafted to serve "targeted advertising" to its customer in order to " enhance user experience " and " optimize the revenue per customer ".

The tool is very easy to design: just a cookie injector: any http request sent from your personal connection to any of google service, whatever the ip address, will have a unique cookie header inserted which is recognized by DClick / Adsense.. you can not block it. You can not detect it. And it is not a big cost for ISPs.