In my last post, I explained why tracking cookies are the work of the devil. They put things on your machine without your knowledge or consent, give no benefit, and can slow down any web site that uses them. To make things worse, the sites that are putting these cookies on your machine are using this information to generate revenue through advertising. You get nothing.

I would be remiss if all I did was to point out the problem without offering some sort of solution. So, without further ado, here's a whole bunch of them.

Do the right thing - This solution is the easiest, the most ethical, and makes the most sense. So therefore, it's unlikely that anyone will do this. It's very simple. When you go to a web site, it won't automatically put tracking cookies on your computer. On the web page, there will be a button that you can click if it's all right for that site to put tracking cookies on your computer. As an incentive, the site can offer something in return for those who allow cookies, such as access to special features. In this way, everyone would benefit.

Deal with it in software - Users fight back - Tracking cookies are spyware. They track your browsing and report it to someone else, all without your knowledge. Sort of like having your phone tapped. So if tracking cookies are a problem, there's money to be made with software to fix it. I just got the newest version of my favorite antivirus-antispyware program and it automatically removes tracking cookies. Not all of them, but better algorithms will eventually be able to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Charge rental - If you want to put something on my computer that only benefits you, then you should be willing to pay something for the privilege, especially if you're going to use the information to make money. Think of it as renting space on my computer. I think a fair rental would be one cent/per cookie/per day. If your site put five cookies on my computer, that's five cents per day rental. Don't scoff -- it's through nickels and dimes that Google made its billions. If you have 1000 cookies on your machine, that's $3650 a year in rentals. If this plan is implemented, the extra cash generated will help to fix the problems with our economy. What a deal, everybody wins!

Tracker Hacker - This will be a software add-on for your web browser. Instead of deleting the tracking cookies, it will mess with their little minds and make the data inconsistent and unreliable. Imagine the surprise when the tracking cookie says that the last time you visited a particular web site is next week.

Use stats that don't execute on a visitor's browser - A web site can get most of the same info without intruding on a visitor's privacy. These stats will be generated only by programs that run on the web server and won't interfere with a visitor's computer. But that's the subject for another article.

Looking into the future, it's easy to see that stats that use cookies will eventually become unreliable. The use of anti-spyware programs is already making stats based on cookies less than reliable. As users become aware of the problem, and as software begins to separate the beneficial cookies from the tracking cookies, these stats will eventually go the way of all the other great ideas that became obsolete.