This is a pilot study of the use of 'Flash cookies' by popular websites. We find that more than 50% of the sites in our sample are using flash cookies to store information about the user. Some are using it to 'respawn' or re-instantiate HTTP cookies deleted by the user. Flash cookies often share the same values as HTTP cookies, and are even used on government websites to assign unique values to users. Privacy policies rarely disclose the presence of Flash cookies, and user controls for effectuating privacy preferences are lacking.

California‟s Governor Gray Davis signed SB 27, the “Shine the Light” law, on September 23, 2003. This law allows California residents to contact companies with whom they have established business relationships within the past eighteen months and request information about how their personal information has been shared with third parties. Companies respond three ways: they can allow customers to opt out of third party sharing, disclose the third parties with whom they have shared information, or simply state that they do not share information with third parties for marketing purposes. Investigating the “Shine the Light” has shown that most companies will not respond unless they verify that the letter is from an actual customer. This study also shows that most companies do not share information with third parties for their direct marketing purposes. law gives researchers the opportunity to better understand how companies comply with consumer privacy laws, how these companies share personal information, and the challenges that consumers may experience when trying to assert their privacy rights. We contacted 112 companies requesting a response about the distribution of their consumers‟ personal information. These companies had thirty days to respond to the requests. The results will inform consumers and policymakers about how companies comply with statutory privacy laws. With this information, consumers and policymakers will learn more about largely opaque data sharing practices among businesses. Additionally, this effort will assist companies in developing more effective responses to privacy inquiries.

Consumers have a dim understanding of how companies share personal information. To "shine a light" on information sharing practices, the authors employed a unique California law to survey the information sharing practices of 112 businesses. This follow-on study to a similar, smaller survey in 2007, found that four years after the law took effect, compliance is uneven. Fifty-three companies did not respond to the request at all. Only six companies disclosed how they shared information with third parties for their direct marketing purposes. Thirty-nine companies informed us that they do not share information, 5 provided an opt-out option for third party sharing, and 9 responses were categorized as "other."

Vertebrate evolution has been largely driven by the duplication of genes that allow for the acquisition of new functions. The ATP-binding cassette (ABC) proteins constitute a large and functionally diverse family of membrane transporters. The members of this multigene family are found in all cellular organisms, most often engaged in the translocation of a wide variety of substrates across lipid membranes. Because of the diverse function of these genes, their large size, and the large number of orthologs, ABC genes represent an excellent tool to study gene family evolution. We have identified ABC proteins from the sea squirt (Ciona intestinalis), zebrafish (Danio rerio), and chicken (Gallus gallus) and, using phylogenetic analysis, identified those genes with a one-to-one orthologous relationship to human ABC proteins. All ABC protein subfamilies found in Ciona and zebrafish correspond to the human subfamilies, with the exception of a single ABCH subfamily gene found only in zebrafish. Multiple gene duplication and deletion events were identified in different lineages, indicating an ongoing process of gene evolution. As many ABC genes are involved in human genetic diseases, and important drug transport phenotypes, the understanding of ABC gene evolution is important to the development of animal models and functional studies.