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Internet cookies are encrypted text files used by websites for various purposes, including facilitating online shopping, storing preferences and personal information, and web profiling. There are two types of cookies: temporary and permanent. Controls to disable cookies are available in all post 3.x browsers.
Almost all commercial websites today transmit one or more unique encrypted text files to visitors’ computers which can be used for various purposes. Some uses are considered beneficial and others invasive. These encrypted files are known as Internet cookies, computer cookies or simply cookies. In addition to the website itself, third-party cookies may be dropped on visitors by parties affiliated with the website, most commonly marketers.
There are two classes of Internet cookies: temporary and permanent. Temporary cookies are saved in the browser’s memory and are lost at the end of each session, as soon as the browser is closed. These cookies contain information that does not need to persist between sessions and is sometimes necessary for a site to function properly. Permanent cookies, also known as persistent cookies, are transferred to your hard drive and can “live” for years. These cookies save information for the benefit of the user or the issuer.
When you visit a website for the first time, it is likely that the site will pass a cookie to your browser to be saved on your hard drive. This cookie has a unique ID which will only be mapped to your computer. A corresponding file is created on the issuing web server with the assigned anonymous ID. Because Internet cookies are encrypted, the main part of the cookie is only readable by the issuer, but some data is visible, including the issuer’s website address, date/time stamps, and expiration date.
The uses of cookies vary. If the site requires registration, a cookie will store this information permanently so that on subsequent visits you can be recognized immediately and automatically logged in to the site. This can happen without your intervention because when web browsers request a web page, they are designed to scan your hard drive for any cookies that match the site address and deliver them. Once the site receives a cookie, it opens the server counterpart, revealing the registration information previously provided.
Internet cookies are also used to facilitate online shopping. If you need to abandon a shopping session, for example, the items will be saved and restored to a cart the next time you return to the site, even months later. If you personalize a site, a cookie will store your preferences for you so that when you next visit the site, your preferences will be loaded based on the information in your cookie.
Internet cookies are also used for web profiling, a less popular application than encrypted text files. Every mouse click on a site’s pages can be logged in a visitor’s unique cookie log, saved as a roadmap of that person’s browsing habits. Each visit to the site adds further data to the cookie, based on the information previously collected. If the navigator provides personal information to the site, these can be associated with the profile, replacing the anonymous ID.
Even less popular is profiling by major marketers. Marketers can issue third-party Internet cookies from hundreds of thousands of the most popular websites. This allows the marketer to not only track a visitor across a single website, but across the web. The amount of information that can be gleaned by tracking an individual’s browsing habits in a single day is astounding, but over the course of weeks, months and years becomes difficult for the average person to understand. Sophisticated software analyzes the profiling information collected from Internet cookies to classify the target in different ways based on statistical data. Age, gender, location, political leanings, hobbies, marital status, religious interests, health issues, lifestyle choices, real estate, financial investments, and many other personal areas of life are easily revealed through your browsing habits.
In 1995, when cookie technology was incorporated into browsers, controls were not included to disable cookies. There was a backlash in the internet community when it was discovered that internet cookies were being used to profile audiences covertly. Those in the know relied on third-party cookie managers, but the average person was automatically profiled without their permission or knowledge.
That backlash led to the cookie controls we have today, available in all post 3.x browsers. While most browsers still install with cookie controls enabled by default, you can navigate to the appropriate Options or Tools menu to turn off cookies entirely, turn off third-party cookies only, or allow session cookies only. You can also opt out of cookies when creating an exempt list that will allow certain sites to use them. Also included are controls that allow you to clear all Internet cookies from your system.
