What are the risks of cookies To Your privacy And How To protect them
They are text files that contain packets of information about the websites you’ve visited, and they help websites recognize your computer so they can deliver content faster.
Cookies also store details, such as your username and password, this way you don’t have to re-enter your credentials every time you log into the site.
Genesis of cookies
Cookies were invented in 1994, to relieve the overload of the e-commerce stores that populated the Internet at the time.
Nowadays, details such as your shopping cart information are stored in your web browser rather than in the store’s database, so when you navigate away from the page, the items you previously added to the cart are still there.
Common types of cookies
Here are some common examples you will come across:
Session cookies: These are temporary files that are deleted once your session ends or when you close your browser. They help you navigate the site without tracking your browsing habits.
Persistent Cookies: This type of cookie is used for website authentication. Many online merchants also use them in their remarketing practices, where they serve you targeted ads or suggest items in their stores. Persistent cookies are stored on your computer until they expire or you delete them.
Secure Cookies: Secure cookies cannot be used by malware, as they are usually written in scripting languages such as “java script”.
Third Party Cookies: Pages with ads may set cookies that grant access to third parties, even if you don’t click on any of the ads, and advertisers can use them to track your browsing history.
It should be noted here that the latter type is cause for concern, as it tracks and stores data without your explicit permission or knowledge.
Why do companies use cookies?
The main reasons for using cookies include:
Improving the experience on the site, by recognizing users and remembering their login information and preferences.
Personalize and target ads based on browsing history, and drive sales by tracking previously viewed items, shopping preferences, engagement, and site behavior.
Cookie dangers
Some cookies may be necessary for basic website functionality, but most are used for statistical and marketing purposes and to collect personal data, such as user behavior and search history.
This data is often shared with third parties such as technology companies, social networks and media platforms, and data brokers.
So while cookies help your site function and give you insight into its performance and conversions, they also pose some risk to your business.
As an Internet user, it is wise to understand the dangers of cookies so that you can view and delete them when necessary. Here are the most prominent ones:
Violation of Privacy: For most Internet users, privacy is their primary concern. When it comes to cookies on the Internet, important search engines and other advertising systems track users and use this information to serve ads. Naturally, many users feel that this is a flagrant violation of privacy.
Use of fraudulent cookies: Cookies are used either to falsify the identity of legitimate users, or to use their identity to perform malicious acts.
To avoid scams, it is important that you keep your browser updated, as many cookie scams are designed to take advantage of security holes in older browsers.
How to turn off cookies easy
What pop-ups usually do is tell you that the page you are visiting uses cookies to give you a better experience. However, at this point you may have stopped reading and hit the accept button, thus doing exactly what the website wants you to do, ie agreeing to be tracked.
However, there are ways to decline cookies and prevent those pop-ups from appearing at all.
A new method called Never-Consent has been announced by Ghostery, which specializes in privacy-focused web tools.
Never Consent blocks pop-ups and rejects cookies automatically, all you have to do is install the extension and it will do the work for you.
It should be noted here that browser extensions and the companies that make them can also track you, so be careful who you trust.
If you don’t want to bother searching for and installing browser extensions, there are some other ways you can try to do something similar to Never Consent, where you can use a browser that blocks cookies by default, and almost all browsers do that except Chrome, although it is the most famous.
There is also a Global Privacy Control service that automatically tells websites not to sell or share user data, but this is not available in all browsers, especially Chrome and Safari.
Don’t think that the days of annoying pop-ups or tracking are gone forever, because more and more companies are using them to encourage you to sign up for newsletters and marketing emails for advertising and marketing purposes.
This is their way of collecting data about you, and now that cookies are on their way to stop, as we have seen, companies are always looking for effective alternatives to implement their agendas in their interests, and they are likely to devise a new way to track you and profit from you in the event that their current method is prevented.
