Cookie Hysteria is the irrational and erroneous belief that HTTP cookies on the World Wide Web are dangerous.
This is wrong for the following reasons:
Proviso: It is possible for a site to cause to be set a cookie outside of its domain by including an image from that domain. In this scenario, called "third party cookies" the server sending the image from the other domain sets and reads its own cookies. The server that sends the page that includes the image cannot actually read the third party cookie, or vice versa.
However, if these sites are operating in close cooperation, they could share data with each other by another mechanism. However, in this case, this is little different than if the site had set its own cookie. Typical uses for this are outsourcing arrangements (such as when a site uses a third party service for traffic analytics) and cross-domain authentication networks such as passport.net
If, however, the network of sites participating is very large, the operator of that network, such as the real-world networks of Google Analytics or Overture, could have statistical information about a large number of websites. This may or may not be a good thing.
In principal such a network could build up a profile of information about the user based on which sites he or she visits. This, again, may or may not be a good thing. The main purpose for doing this is to serve targeted advertisements. The main threat from this is if the analytics network has a security breach.
It isn't possible to identify the specific user except in the case of actual malfeasance, (I.E. you would have to tell a site in the network who you were, and the site would have to tell the network, neither of which actually happens). The analytics network only recognizes you a number. Not withstanding, the Vistua Network blocks Google Analytics.