Cookies - To eat or not to eat?

Let me begin by saying I hope you love the title of this article as much as I do! I had a lot of butter cookies while writing this article, and the effects can be clearly seen!

Today, we will try to understand in a easy way what a Cookie means in the Data Privacy world?

By definition, Cookies are small blocks of data created by a web server while a user is browsing a website and placed on the user's computer or other device by the user's web browser. Cookies are placed on the device used to access a website, and more than one cookie may be placed on a user's device during a session.

In short, cookies are useful and sometimes essential. They enable web servers to store information such as items added in the shopping cart in an online store on the user's device, or to track the user's browsing activity, or recording which pages were visited in the past. They can also be used to save for subsequent use information that the user previously entered into form fields, such as names, addresses, passwords, and payment card numbers.

Cookies are also referred to as web cookies, Internet cookies, browser cookies, or just simply cookies.

Any common man will find that cookies make our life easier in many ways. Imagine logging in with your password every time you open LinkedIn, or any app, even if it is on your trusted device.

Now that the definition and meaning is clear, let's jump to the privacy perspective. Quite honestly, if you know what's going on, and which sites have what data on you, and if you have given your consent to the collection of your personal data, then that is great.

However, most people do not know about cookies and behavioral advertising. This is where the problems start.

Years ago, cookies were only shared between the website (let's call this the first party) and the User that's you (let's call you the second party). Over time, third parties joined the bandwagon. If you didn't guess already, these are your advertising companies that keep popping up ads when you are enjoying your favorite song on your free Spotify account.

Now read this next paragraph slowly and try to understand how this works in your life.

Every time you visit a website that has advertisement on it, a cookie may be passed from the advertising company (remember the third party) to your computer. Later, when you revisit that website, or visit another site that uses the same advertising company, the third-party cookie can be read by the advertising company. If the cookie contains a unique identifier, then information about your visits to different websites can be linked together. In this way, a DETAILED PROFILE can be built about you (or other people who also use the same computer as you) and your browsing habits. It can then be used to target advertising to you.

In simple words, you were looking up cat food near you, and now all of a sudden, on You Tube, Facebook, etc. you are getting advertisements of cat food.

From a privacy standpoint, third-party cookies, flash cookies, and super cookies raise privacy concerns because they are largely hidden from view, difficult to locate, and hard to delete.

So, what can you do?

You can start by reviewing the settings on your web browser to control the cookies. Check if there is a default setting to store all cookies. Use your discretion to allow only essential cookies as per your needs and reject the non-essential cookies.