Windows Phone Thoughts: Mediaplex, Spyware, and Cookies

I've had a few of you email in the past month over concerns about Pocket PC Thoughts pushing "spyware" down onto your computers. While I applaud the vigilance many of you are showing by protecting yourselves against spyware, it seems that some of these programs are a little too protective. :wink: Mediaplex is the company who is serving up the Sprint campaign that you see on this site. Mediaplex, like every other advertising company, drops a cookie when their banner loads - a cookie is a small text file that, in situations like this, will typically track things such as "How many times has this person seen this banner". Cookies such as this cannot aggregate personal information, are not linked to your PPCT account, and are generally quite harmless. So if you happen to see your spyware program warn you about Mediaplex "spyware", please rest assured that your privacy nor your computer are being violated. I remain committed to avoiding intrusive pop-up/pop-under advertising, but cookies are a fact of life with even the most mundane banner ad.