"Supercookies"

I was doing some work with a friend of mine when he told me about a fairly new type of internet monitoring technology he heard about on the Wall Street Journal. Since the WSJ is not the most technically advanced news reporting group out there, I figured that if this new form of monitoring was appearing in an article there than it was not terribly cutting edge, but I had never heard about it. "Supercookies" as they are called seem to be cookies that can take up more space on your hard drive as well as be harder to locate and remove. Supercookies or "Flash cookies" seem to be adobe flash based and the adobe website storage settings for your computer can be accessed here.

fightidentitytheft.com also had some other ways that supercookies can be dealt with as well are more insight into supercookies

Targeted marketing is obviously one of the main reasons companies such as Microsoft, Hulu, and other large companies would use browser tracking methods such as supercookies, but I feel like the line between smart marketing and invasion of privacy is becoming smaller and smaller these days and the dangers of that are not fun to think about.

Say a company were to attain browsing history of an individual who was a doctor and is constantly searching for specific types of diseases or illnesses. If, for some reason, that browsing history were given to that individuals insurance company and the insurance company were to drop him or her for fear that they were possibly getting sick, is that smart business or is it a major breach of privacy? Just food for thought...

 
Wall Street Journal Supercookie Article