I never really knew what “cookies” were, and I’m not talking about the kind you eat…
A computer cookie is a small text file which contains a unique ID tag, placed on your computer by a website. The website saves a complimentary file with a matching ID tag. In this file various information can be stored, from pages visited on the site, to information voluntarily given to the site. When you revisit the site days or weeks later, the site can recognize you by matching the cookie on your computer with the counterpart in its database.
This kind of cookie seems a little scarier then that of the kind you eat. Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig couldn’t have said it more perfectly: rather than naming the technology something “sweet and happy like ‘cookies,’” they should have named it what it was: “Network Spy.” But later I found out they were named “cookies” rooting from “fortune cookie” for the hidden information inside.
O’Reily brought up one of positive aspects of Cookies. They can store a user’s preferences so they won’t have to keep updating what they like, or personalize pages. Users feel one of the negative aspects is definitely their lack of privacy. Marketers can track people’s usage on websites and see what kind of people are going to which sites.
Personally, I don’t really care if a marketing company knows what kind of websites I browse – because I don’t have anything to hide. I’m a pretty typical 20 year old female college student.
I guess another bad thing about cookies is that they block content that might actually not be something that need be restricted (for most audiences.) But then again, if you were searching for something and cookies blocked it you probably wouldn’t even know the difference.
What are the risks of enabling cookies on your computer?
What other kinds of user monitoring might be used in the future?
