TBTAM PSA : Is Double Click Slowing you Down?

My internet has been increasingly slow lately. As I was waiting for pages to load, I kept seeing “Waiting for http://www.doubleclick.net.”.

Double Click belongs to Google. It’s major product is the DART cookie – a device that lets advertisers track how many users saw their ad, how many clicked through, and which ads users went to. The cookie stays with your browser and gets updated every time you visit a webpage that uses the cookies (like Google).

Can Ad-Double Click be disabled?

The answer is yes!

Simply go to the Adclick website and download a privacy cookie. That’s it!

Really? It’s that easy?

Yep. But there are a few things to know to keep things in place once you’ve opted out of double click –

1. Opting out is a cookie, not a program. So if you remove or diable cookies, doubleclick will come right back as soon as you visit Google and you’ll need to go and opt out again.

2. If you have both IE and Firefox, you’ll need to upload the privacy opt-out cookie to both browsers.

3. It’s not as if you won’t keep getting ads. They’ll just be generic and not targeted to you. (Sorry.)

4. Doubleclick will still be able to track you by your IP address (just like I know the IP addresses of everyone who visits this blog), unless you use an IP blocker or route your visits through another site like AOL.

So, does it really work?

I am ZOOMING!!! (Mouse, don’t fail me now…)

4 Responses to TBTAM PSA : Is Double Click Slowing you Down?

  1. Does it interfer with cookies from sites such as Blogger (which gets cranky at me for cookies sometimes)?

    I’m a little suspicious that the good folks who are making a profit off cookies are providing this.

    Bardiac (it wouldn’t let me sign in now for some reason?)

  2. It should not interfere with cookies from sites that use it, which are the only sites you need the privacy cookie for, so I don’t think it should be a problem.

    The privacy cookie comes form the same people who put the double click cookie on your computer in the first place (ie, google and others). It’s just an opt out option. Just one that most of us don’t know about unless you visit the double click site, or look around for a fix, as I did, after getting annoyed at slow loading times on google.

  3. There’s another way to deal with annoying cookies:
    Optional: First remove all cookies. Tools-Internet Options-Browsing History-Delete- Delete Cookies
    Then/or: Tools-Internet Options-Privacy Tab-Medium or Medium High
    Next time you go to any site which wants to send you a cookie, you will be asked if you want to accept it or not.
    There, you can also set the sites that you allow to send a cookie.

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