The Wall Street Journal takes its turn at laying out marketers' palliative attempts to make sure that cookies don't continue to cause computer users heartburn (via paidcontent). With a significant proportion of users misunderstanding - and deleting - cookies, marketers and publishers are scrambling, according to the WSJ piece, which refers to the recently founded industry group Safecount, formed in part to counter the efforts of antispyware makers that sometimes lump legitimate cookies with actual threats found in computers. Others want to lobby Congress. And some have apparently moved on and are experimenting with creative, probably controversial, approaches that let sites serve up targeted ads even if a user has deleted cookies.

One company has begun marketing a technology known as a persistent identification element, or PIE, which uses Flash to secretly make backup copies of cookies before they are deleted. Apparently a handful of publishers and advertising companies are using the technology to track users.

Recent Coverage: The Cookie Imbroglio

- WebTrends: Despite Net Ad Boom, Confidence in Web Metrics Shaky

- Burst Cookie Survey: Consumers 'Don't Understand, Say Maybe Useful, But Some Delete Anyhow

- Study: Quadruple the Number of Visitors Rejecting Third-Party Cookies
- Safecount Launched to Save Cookies, Back Safe Measurement
- Study: 27 Percent Weekly Clearing Cookies
- InsightExpress: Rumors of Cookie Demise Still Greatly Exaggerated
- Cookie Death Small Potatoes, More Product of Spyware Measures
- Atlas: Cookie Deletion Figures Exaggerated Wildly by Self-Reported Data
- Macromedia CTO: Yeah, Flash Makes for Good Cookie Replacements
- Cookie Death Causes Search for Successor
- Cookie Death Partly Due to 'Anti-Spyware' Tools
- Tacoda Tech Replaces Deleted Cookies
- Many Delete Cookies, Invalidate Ad Measurements
- House Removes Threat to Cookies in Spyware Bill