The System.Web.Configuration.AnonymousIdentificationSection class allows you to programmatically access and modify the anonymousIdentification element of a configuration file.

The purpose of anonymous identification is to assign, at machine and application level, a unique identity to a non-authenticated user. This unique identity can then be used to track the user. Anonymous identification as used in this context does not have any relationship with the identity of the issuer of the Web request or with other security aspects related to the user; it simply assigns a unique identity for tracking purposes and user state management.

Anonymous users are often tracked using the Session identifier. The main problems with this approach are the non-uniqueness of the identifier and the overhead involved in storing data to set a Session state value, which must be done in order to assign a session identifier to a user. Anonymous identification resolves these problems by providing a unique identifier for each non-authenticated user and not requiring the user to store any data to set the identifier.

Namespace: System.Web.Configuration
Assembly: System.Web (in System.Web.dll)
Assembly Versions: 2.0.0.0
Since: .NET 2.0