+ Cookies are a minor threat to personal privacy. Most everyone deletes them nowadays, at least anyone who cares about their privacy has that option. But that option is about to be taken away for a while.

A New York company called United Virtualities is now marketing the ability to restore deleted cookies to a back up file, without the user knowing. The user who thinks blocking and deleting cookies is effectively protecting them from businesses spying on them is in for a surprise.

United Virtualities calls this PIE -mmm pie, such a nice name for such a devious manipulation of technology!

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.

Mookie Tanembaum, founder and chief executive of United Virtualities, says the company is trying to help consumers by preventing them from deleting cookies that help website operators deliver better services.

“The user is not proficient enough in technology to know if the cookie is good or bad, or how it works,” Tanembaum said.