IE8 + Porn Mode = What for CCbill, Epoch, NATS, etc?

[RawAlex]

As I am sure most of you are aware, the new IE8 browser which is currently in beta will feature a "porn mode" (what they call in private) that sort of puts a stick in the wheels of some forms of tracking. One of the more obvious features is that if a certain setting is activated, third parties cannot cookie or track a user.

Also, any cookies that are kept (temporarily) is dumped at the end of the session along with browser history and other stuff (even saved passwords, EEK!).

These types of options are already available on the (used only by some artsy geeks who woulnd't buy porn anyway) Mac, and is also a plugin option for firefox (which might potential become a built in feature to compete with microsoft).

Implications? Sites using cookies to track returning clients will no longer be able to do so, so those cam sites and such with the 180 day cookie or cookie for life will have no way to keep that promise in the future. That means that if a guy visits a site, closes his browser window completely and then comes back to the site in a new window 2 minutes later, then there will be no cookie and no way to track that user.

So, here's the question: How does this affect NATS, MPA, CCbill, Epoch, Netbilling and Jettis and their click tracking systems, and how will it affect affiliate tracking over all?

As it is, there is very good potential that this will directly or indirectly affect third party ad providers that use cookies or other information to decide which ads to show, such as Google Ads. While it isn't clear the complete deal, it appears that ALL information can be denied to third parties, which might even suggest information like calling page. This could really change some things.

Anyone have any ideas? Would anyone from the companies like to bless us with some information based on their tests (which I am sure they have all been making, as they are forward thinking companies)?