298825 - Removing private information should include Flash MX shared objects

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 290456

(Firefox :: Settings UI, enhancement)

Description

[John Hopkins]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.7.6) Gecko/20050317 Firefox/1.0.2
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.7.6) Gecko/20050317 Firefox/1.0.2


Flash MX shared objects can be used to store information including copies of
cookies that users have deleted so that the cookies can be later restored. 
Users should be given an easy to way to delete these objects to uphold their
privacy.

Here is an excerpt from a relevant article:

"According to JupiterResearch, a division of Jupitermedia Corp., 58 percent of
Internet users have deleted the tiny files, essentially making many consumers
anonymous during site visits. In addition, 39 percent of consumers are deleting
cookies from their primary computer monthly.

United Virtualities's PIE helps combat this consumer behavior by leveraging a
feature in Flash MX called local shared objects. Flash MX is a Macromedia Inc.
application for developing multimedia Web content, user interfaces and Web
applications. The technology runs on a Flash Player that the company says is
deployed on 98 percent of Internet-capable computers.

When a consumer goes to a PIE-enabled website, the visitor's browser is tagged
with a Flash object that contains a unique identification similar to the text
found in a traditional cookie. In this way, PIE acts as a cookie backup, and can
also restore the original cookie when the consumer revisits the site.

While consumers have learned to delete cookies, most are unaware of shared
objects, and don't know how to disable them."

http://www.internetweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=160400749

I'm not aware of how to determine sites that use Flash MX local shared objects
to store user information.

Reproducible: Always

Actual Results:  
Privacy page lets you remove history, cookies, etc.. but not Flash MX local
shared objects which can also store private information.

Expected Results:  
Option to remove Flash MX local shared objects in the Privacy page.

Comment 1

[zug_treno]

Duplicate of/related to bug 290456?

Comment 2

[John Hopkins]

Sounds like a duplicate, yes.  The minor differences are I've referred to an
article describing what needs to be cleared and a suggestion as to how a user
would clear them.  Please feel free to mark as a dupe.

Comment 3

[Jo Hermans]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 290456 ***