Beware of cookies
Written by: Engineer Ismail Babiker
The vast majority of Internet sites that you visit now meet you with a welcome message through a pop- up window that appears and asks you to agree to what are called “cookies”, with the aim of improving your browsing process on the site Most of us press the agree button quickly because we want to get rid of the message and get to what we want within the site, without reading the details
of what we agree to, and knowing what it means.
Here begins the trick of accessing your browsing data with the aim of selling it to advertising .companies
?What are cookies
A cookie is a small text file that is downloaded to your computer or smartphone
When a user accesses a particular Internet site, this file allows the Internet site to recognize the user’s device and store some information about the user’s .preferences or prior browsing history According to Internet regulations, websites must tell people that cookies exist, explain what cookies do and why, and obtain consent A person will store a cookie on their device, and as long as the website does this the first time the person visits the website, they will not have to repeatedly show the consent banner every time the same person visits the website !Cookie Notice.. Hidden Consent
This cookie notice that appears when you visit websites is there to secure your consent, in accordance with
According to online privacy laws, to keep information about your browsing sessions and the notice claims to give you a choice of two, the first is to agree to only essential cookies which help .maintain your browsing functionality
While the second option is to accept all cookies including tracking cookies Your browsing history is sold to targeted advertising companies and because these additional cookies generate additional revenue for the websites we visit, cookie notifications are often designed to trick you into clicking “accept all” because this consent is what increases the there is
value of the sale Studies have shown that cookies actually represent higher revenues for online publishers. If
reduction in advertising revenue for 52% publishers when they eliminate cookies through opt-out protocols for Internet users On the other hand, when cookies are present, the price of served ads doubles Danger of cookies
By agreeing to any of the cookies, you are effectively allowing the website or application to collect different types of data about you, which may violate some of your human rights such as your right to privacy. To control what data a site or app can collect about you, you have to go through
the arduous process of reading the terms Long and complex provisions. Therefore, most of
us resort to agreeing quickly in
order to relieve ourselves of this fatigue
You may think you’re not doing anything illegal
online, so it doesn’t really matter whether
someone knows you’re reading certain types of
articles or ordering certain food or products. This
is a wrong and dangerous way of thinking. It
becomes our internet data
They are valuable when combined to form a
profile about us that can allow companies to infer
other things about us, and thus provide us with
.targeted advertising
This type of targeting can also enable companies
to discriminate against people and deny them
equal access to basic human rights, such as
housing, employment, and even political views.
This is dangerous and puts your basic rights at
.risk
Cookies and Dark Design
These “cookie” banners or notices that manipulate
users into accepting all cookies are just one
example of what is called “dark design,” the
practice of creating intentionally tailored user
.interfaces
They are valuable when combined to form a
profile about us that can allow companies to infer
other things about us, and thus provide us with
….targeted advertising
