For over a month now I have spent much of my time thinking and talking about cookies, but thankfully not eating them.

Many people, much more versed than I on the impact of cookies, have exerted a lot of brainpower trying to sort out the issue of consumer cookie deletion. Nothing has been resolved but the ideas are certainly flowing.

Cookie deletion has long been a huge deal for the deal for the affiliate and performance marketing space. But about six weeks ago, the issue was brought to the forefront when Jupiter Research released findings stating that as many as 33 percent of Internet users delete cookies weekly and that nearly 40 percent of Internet users wipe out their cookies at least once a month.

That research was widely picked up by the mainstream media. The findings of the report have also been challenged. Though many have ended up restating their findings to show cookie deletion rates that were even higher than those reported by Jupiter.

All this has prompted experts, industry watchers, software vendors, merchants and affiliates to propose solutions. This week top executives from Carat Interactive and Dynamic Logic joined forces to launch Safecount, a coalition will address the concerns of marketers and consumers around online measurement – and specifically cookies.

Now The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IA is getting into the mix. A recently published report says that the IAB is forming a cookie committee or task force that will attempt to identify different approaches.

It seems that eveything is changing when it comes to cookies. That’s why I’m taking a wait-and-see approach to all this, but if you have an idea, solution or just an opinion on cookies I want to hear it.