About Cookies
The truth is,
although some cookies should be avoided, most are innocent, and many are even helpful to Internet users.
A cookie is like a passport in your computer. Whenever you visit a web site, the web server can send a cookie to your computer, which is then
stored on your hard drive. As you visit additional sites, you may pick up additional cookies. Each cookie is a miniature record of your visit to a
specific web site, complete with information such as an ID number, time of your last visit to that specific site, and any other information that
you give up willingly such as password or email address.
The only information a cookie can preserve in your browser is time, date, browser type, and whatever string of information the cookie-owner
wants to send back to him or herself the next time you enter that particular site (and *only* that particular site.) The effect is something akin
to "Caller ID" on telephones. By retrieving the cookie left previously, a web site can "remember" your site-specific password, your preferences,
and other tidbits of information. When you re-visit a site, a cookie left on your hard drive will identify you.
For example, on-line organizations, like the New York Times, which require user ID and passwords can store this information in the form of a
cookie. This way, repeat visitors avoid having to fill out form information on each visit. Likewise, some on-line search engines use cookies
to "remember" users and offer them customized news and services based on their prior use.
On a more general note, a site could display a "what's new" page based on the last time that particular user visited the site, or could let
visitors customize how the site will look to them, and to save a short record of those choices for future visits. In a department store you can
monitor traffic by following worn places in the carpet; in a web site, cookies can trace user activity, which enables the web designers to
determine which of their pages were the most successful and plan their updates accordingly.
With the increasing commercial applications of the Internet, it was probably inevitable that cookies would quickly be utilized for commercial
purposes. Since cookies can be matched to the profile of a user's interests and browsing habits, they are a natural tool for the "targeting" of
advertisements to individual users.
A commercial application you may be familiar with is called a "shopping cart." It allows you to move from page to page putting items into a
basket. These carts are actually cookies, which are used to store information about the contents of your shopping cart so that you can
conveniently purchase a cart full of items. Without it, you would have to purchase items one at a time.
Internet marketing consultants have also began to utilize cookies to increase the efficiency of advertising placement on web sites. Their intent
is to target advertisements, such as banner ads, to users whose profiles match those of likely consumers of the advertised products. For
example, one company was retained by the 3M Corporation to help target Internet banner advertising for an expensive multi-media projector.
The consultants made use of cookie information to match the banners with users who had a history of selecting high-technology sites.
Privacy activists have two related concerns about cookies: the possibility that users could be tracked consistently between sites, and that the
limited information in a cookies might be linked with a larger database elsewhere.
Tracking between sites is happening right now. If you look in your cookie file (see sidebar) there are probably cookies in there from sites you
do not remember visiting. This is not really supposed to happen--cookies are set by one site, and aren't supposed to be available to other
sites. However, a handful of net-oriented ad agencies have found a loophole in that rule. What happens is that a site puts a paid ad banner
in their pages. That banner isn't from the original site, though—it’s actually a link to a graphic in the ad agency's site – and so the home user
gets a cookie from the ad agency. Even though the ad agency might place banners in several different sites, your browser will see them as
coming from the same site--the ad agency.
Three marketing companies that are selling marketing strategies based on this type of cookie are Globaltrack, Doubleclick, and Focalink.
Doubleclick has gotten attention by taking tracking a step further. Doubleclick is now placing banner ads in Lycos and AltaVista, two of the
most popular web search engines. Doubleclick calls its new strategy "Editorial Targeting". Users of AltaVista have already started noticing
that the ad banners they see have started to show strange relationships to the words being searched on. Do a search on "German shepherd,"
say, and you might get an ad for dog food.
By itself, even this kind of tracking might not be harmful. Right now, all the server knows is that ID number 18579 went to sites A, B, and C,
and did dog-related searches on AltaVista. This kind of information is gold to marketing firms, and the ability to sell enhanced advertising
could help many commercial sites compete with TV stations and paper publications for ad dollars. The worry is that somewhere in the
corporate world, someone might be keeping a list that links that cookie ID with a true name and real-life address.
How would someone get that information? Many, many users have offered up all that data by themselves--by filling out forms on the web.
This could be compared to having your address and whatever other information you fill out on a form made permanently visible to the owner
of a store. All it takes is one filled-out form to leak out your personal information for good, and one unscrupulous webmaster to link that
information with your cookie file.
These things don't appear to have happened--yet. The current uses for cookies aren't as alarming as their potential for abuse in the future.
The best advice is simply to keep a heads-up attitude about sharing personal information about yourself on the web. Don't fill out a form
unless you are sure the site is "secure" (see @Internet, December issue), or have a specific reason to do so—or do what many savvy people
do, and put in a fake name and address.
Otherwise, eat up those cookies and let them make your browsing a breeze!
