[AlbertW]

the idea with ad cookies is that, every time you visit a site with their ads on it, they record your visit to that site. that way, for every cookie ID, they're able to compile an "interest profile" based on the sites you've visited that they've read the cookie on.

browsers are naturally protective of cookies. theres no way one site can steal your password from another site by looking at their cookie. the browser doesn't let it happen

the "privacy issue" behind this is that, people generally don't like "interest profiles" being compiled about them. so basically, if you go through and delete your cookies every once in a while (the ones from tribalfusion, doubleclick, etc) they they have to assign you a new cookie ID next time you visit a page with their ads, and they hafta compile a new profile from scratch.

its really inane, partially because they're so desperate to get you to click their ads that they'd do something this, and mostly because of how meaningless it is, yet privacy advocates are getting their panties in a twist.

::shrug::

and yes, if you disable third party cookies, it helps, cause the only way to put a cookie on one site that they can access from another site is to put them from one central location (a third party server,) so unless you actually GO to ad.doubleclick.net, they can't put it in directly