BleepingComputer.com: Spybot Keeps Finding The Casalmedia Cookies

Spybot keeps finding them even after i remove them. They are Firefox tracking cookies. Without changing the cookie options (changing the exceptions, clearing the cookies, etc), how can i prevent these from showing up. Is a particular site I view the culprit that keeps installing them?

Here is my set up

On a wireless router using Kerio Free Firewall
(the following are frequently updated)
AVG Free
Spybot S&D
Spyware Blaster
Adaware

Win XP
Hard drive defragged

Thanks for the input.

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Most likely that is the case.

Firefox: Using the Cookie Manager
Best to set it to block third party cookies (not originating from the site you are browsing) as blocking cookies individually on a site by site basis can become tiresome.

Cookies are messages given to a Web browser by a Web server. Whenever you visit a page with your browser, the browser stores the message in a text file that is sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. Cookies allow third-party providers such as ad serving networks, spyware or adware providers to track personal information.

Cookies can be categorized as:

Trusted cookies are from sites you trust, use often, and want to be able to identify and personalize content for you.
Nuisance cookies are from those sites you do not recognize or often use but somehow it's put a cookie on your machine.
Bad cookies are those that can be linked to an ad company or something that tracks your movements across the web.

The type of cookie that is a cause for concern is the last category because they are used to track your Web browsing habits (your movement from site to site). Ad companies use them to record your activity on all sites where they have placed ads. When you visit one of these sites, a cookie is placed on your computer. Each time you visit another site that hosts one of their ads, that same cookie is read, and soon they have assembled a list of which of their sites you have visited and which of their ads that you have clicked on. They are used all over the Internet and advertisement companies often plant them whenever your browser loads one of their banners.

These bad cookies are called "profiling cookies," "persistent cookies," "long term tracking cookies," "third party tracking cookies" or simply "tracking cookies."

You can get much useful information about a particular cookie from Firefox.
Tools/Options/Privacy/Cookies/ is the path. When you open the Cookies tab, click on the box named "View Cookies." You can then expand the folders to find individual cookies. Click on a cookie, and information appears in the box below.

It is useful to hold in memory that different companies will have different criteria about what consitutes a "bad cookie" as Quietman7 notes. Another anti-adware scanner might not even consider these bad depending on its interpretation of the privacy statement of the site in question, for example.

If the cookie is originally set by a site you trust, then you can instruct Spybot to ignore them the next time you scan with it.

Regards,
John

thank you both for your informative answers. and thanks for making this one of my favorite computer issue related websites. I always refer people to it who may need assistance. thanks again.

Your welcome. Glad we could help and thank you for the kind words.

Hi Bernie70,
Just happen to come across a post in the Firefox forum about tracking cookies set by Casalmedia.com.So FYI,here is a an excerpt,

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Not giving you any more info than jgweed and quietman7 already have,just interesting to know the purpose of Casalmedia.com.,and that you are not the only one questioning this.