Eliminate websites tracking you?

Ok, so I was reading this article on Alley Insider about users knowing they are being tracked by major websites and hate it. I was wondering, does anyone know how this actually works? I was thinking about a way to prevent it, and the article mentions people deleting cookies.

What if, instead of deleting cookies, you have a program that just overwrites the data inside with generic information? Basically, you surf, and a program fills up a cookie with generic sites and saves over the data that the cookie gathered from your surfing habits. Instead of trying to prevent information being passed to major websites, you just give them false information.

Thanks. I just got into the new version of Safari. For some reason, Firefox has never appealed to me, but Safari is working out quite nicely. Not sure if there are the same tools available though. I've loving the built in spell checker though while I'm writing this post.