The Cookies You Can't Crumble

The bad news for the privacy-conscious is that big Web companies and dozens of startups have begun testing or using cookie alternatives that are often more difficult to spot or disable.

These programs “don’t have consumer controls already there,” says Lou Montulli, who invented the cookie 20 years ago and is now a co-founder of Zetta, a cloud storage startup. “Once they go into effect, consumers have no ability to turn them off.”

Some programs track users by their IP addresses; others look at users’ operating systems and other factors. Startups are promising advertisers that they can deliver, without cookies, data comparable to what the big Web companies collect.