Privacy and the Anti-Cookie Monsters
Sure they taste good, but are they good for you?
During my Web Analytics studies at UBC, an interesting topic arose that was the centre of some lively discussion:
Is the use of cookies to track online behaviour an invasion of privacy?
If you were watching the news lately, you’d think they probably were. Last week, the White House caught quite a bit of flack about using web beacons (a.k.a., web bugs) and persistent cookies on their website, http://www.whiteHouse.gov. Interestingly enough, the use of web beacons (in a nut shell, JavaScript that calls a tiny image while transmitting some data about a web site’s visitors) was not the problem. The problem was the existence of persistent cookies. I won’t go into detail about how the cookies got there, or if they were actually set by the White House website, but basically these little text files that are stored on your computer are quite controversial to some. I’ll just offer this:
Relax. What’s the big deal? Read more…