When you were a little kid, did you leave out milk and cookies for Santa Claus? Well, you still do. Every time you visit a website. But these cookies are electronic, and they make the World Wide Web a powerful medium for advertisers and sales people.
Here's how Wikipedia defines the term:
HTTP cookies, sometimes known as web cookies or just cookies, are parcels of text sent by a server to a web browser and then sent back unchanged by the browser each time it accesses that server. HTTP cookies are used for authenticating, tracking, and maintaining specific information about users, such as site preferences and the contents of their electronic shopping carts.
So they're still sort of like the milk and cookies you left out for Santa Claus. But these cookies, so goes the argument, help Santa Claus know what all the good little boys and girls want for Christmas. At least they help Santa know what the boys and girls ordered on the Internet.
Civil libertarians fear tracking internet purchases can lead to violations of privacy. But David Whalen, an internet pioneer who has written a website called Cookie Central, argues, "The sad truth is that revealing any kind of personal information opens the door for that information to be spread. ... If you're going to single-out cookies as your sole vulnerability to personal privacy, you should re-examine how you live your daily life."
Because the cookies allow websites to track where you've been, their owners can make an educated guess what your tastes are. If you read ESPN every day, for example, they can guess you like sports. Or, more accurately, that someone who uses your computer likes sports. If you buy books from Amazon.com, you'll leave tracks.
For example, when I visit Amazon.com on my home computer, there's a message at the top of the page: "Hello, Peter Ellertsen. We have recommendations for you." If I click on "recommendations" (an active link on my page), I get a list of 15 books on journalism, mass media law, hymns and gospel music, subjects of books I've bought from Amazon. So cookies allow Amazon.com to do a more effective job of marketing when it recognizes my computer.
Similar technology allows website owners to track the effectiveness of ads on the internet, even to get a hard figure on how many people click onto a webpage with their ad. John Wanamaker, a department store magnate of the 1800s and early 1900s in Philadelphia, once famously said, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half." If he were alive today, and using the Internet, he could at least get a handle on it.
Argues the Marketing.fm Blog, a good website to read if you're thinking of a career in communications: "The advent of interactive media and online measurement has allowed marketers to target advertising messages much more precisely. Morover, it is possible to access comprehensive data on the viewers of your campagin: page views, geographic location, clicks, links, etc." Is it time to throw away Wanamaker's quote? Probably not quite yet, according to an unscientific poll of Marketing.fm readers. But the Internet is still a powerful tool for advertisers.
6 comments:
I have mixed opinions about cookies. Basically whatDavid Whalen is saying is that you shouldnt do anything... ever... that you dont want to be seen. "re-examine how you live your daily life"? Come on. Not everyone that is a private person is going to naughty websites. Some people just dont want any of their personal life being aired. Is that a crime?
But on the other hand... computers have a memory. That is really why we use them. So unfortunately we do have to deal with the fact that our personal information can be shared. Or our personal preferences as far as website interest can be shared.
But that doesnt mean we need to re-examine our personal lives. Well, not for all of us
It's not so much that your information is going to used against. That's not the reason for cookies. Not everyone is out to get us. Some people are so we have to be careful. But for a majority of people who visit websites, the pop ups and suggestions that they receive off of that page do help them find what they're looking for. I know on several occasions I have been looking for an item and couldn't find it until an alternative source that I wasn't aware of popped up on my screen. Sure enough I found what I was looking for.
So not all of the functions of cookies are bad.
My sisters' identity was stolen and the truth is that our personal information is out of our own control. Anyone with the proper skills could figure out where you have been on the internet, and what stuff you have bought. Hell people can go up to your mail box and find stuff that gives out your personal privacy.
Cookies are just another way for people to get your information and use it against you, or use it to help you.....You never know
These cookies serve a purpose. They are a great advertising tool that companies can use in order to decrease the size of their general audience and focus on their target audience. As far as knowing your every move on a computer, that just goes to show people how easily information can be acquired. Depending on the person or persons using these cookies determines a good advertising tool and a potential identity theft.
Not all cookies are bad. But is it a crime for someone to get your personal information with out you agreeing to it? Most of the pop up are helpful and annoying. We should be able to consent to us of OUR personal information and make sure it isn't being shared if we don't want it to be shared.
Cookies aren't always helpful, depending on the subject and type of imformation you're looking for. In some cases, forwarding to different cookies, can lead you absolutely no where. Definitons are helpful, when writing any type of research paper. But going into cookies about a certain word/words will probably try to get you to buy a product.
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