Data Communications
“Cookies and their Impact on Privacy”
In today’s fast paced world of internet commerce it would be hard to accomplish many of the tasks without the creation of “cookies.” Since their advent, cookies have been given a bad name and associated immediately with a loss of privacy. In April of 2001 a newspaper article defined cookies as, “…programs that Web sites put on your hard disk. They sit on your computer gathering information about you and everything you do on the Internet, and whenever the Web site wants to it can download all of the information the cookie has collected.” (www.howstuffworks.com) This article could not be any farther from the truth. Cookies are not programs and do not perform any actions as they sit on your hard drive. According to Netscape, “Cookies are a general mechanism which server side connections (such as CGI scripts) can use to both store and retrieve information on the client side of the connection. The addition of a simple, persistent, client-side state significantly extends the capabilities of Web-based client/server applications.” As cookies have emerged to the forefront their association with their user’s privacy has become more of an issue as time progresses.
Even though cookies serve an important role in today’s e-commerce and advertising industries, it is impossible not to think of them as a breach in user security. There is something about a seemingly forced piece of information being saved on your computer for the use of a computer hundreds or even thousands of miles away. One can only think of one word. Privacy. Who’s to say that company’s are using the information gathered by these cookies and using them for good. How do I know that you are collecting cookies for your own advertising or e-commercial purposes rather than probing me as a candidate for the ever-present adware? Do I want vendors to know exactly what it is I usually shop for when I get online? Do I really need to save my shopping time by one or two clicks with the sacrifice of decreased privacy? These are questions that each user asks themselves when we look at our internet security settings or when we are denied access to a site based on our cookie settings. Many companies have been labeled with improper actions concerning cookies. A company named DoubleClick was forced to reach a settlement in 2002 for improper conduct concerning cookies.
Did you know that almost everything you do on the internet is being tracked and recorded in some way? In the Article, George Orwell… Meet Mark Zuckerberg, by Lori Andrews, Andrews talks about how behavioral advertising, which is the tracking of consumer’s online activities in order to bring custom-made advertisements, is a topic that is concealed to many people and can cause damage. Search engines like Google store the searches you have made and in 2006 there were search logs released which had personal information that people were judged by (Andrews 716-717). Data aggregation is the main way Facebook makes its money. Andrews believes that it’s an invasion of privacy and is not known well enough by the public. This article is aimed at young and new internet users that are ignorant of the possible dangers on the web. Lori Andrews is successful at informing novice users about the dangers of behavioral
In the Engineering and Technology Journal, two engineers, Gareth Mitchell and Guy Clapperton, gave their thoughts on both sides of the privacy issue. Is gathering information violating personal privacy? They made their arguments using currency as a metaphor for personal information and online services a product. Mitchell argues the case that giving out personal information is “too high a price to pay” (Mitchell, 2013, p. 26). He says that despite the option to opt out of cookies and certain information, many sites are more covert and make their opt out option less accessible than a pop up asking to opt out. The site makes it hard for the Internet user to say no to being tracked. Mitchell warns the reader to take more consideration into what information they are giving away and that “privacy is not to be taken for granted” (Mitchell, 2013, p. 26). Getting information from the Internet would mean tra...
The personal connection Americans have with their phones, tablets, and computers; and the rising popularity of online shopping and social websites due to the massive influence the social media has on Americans, it is clear why this generation is called the Information Age, also known as Digital Age. With the Internet being a huge part of our lives, more and more personal data is being made available, because of our ever-increasing dependence and use of the Internet on our phones, tablets, and computers. Some corporations such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook; governments, and other third parties have been tracking our internet use and acquiring data in order to provide personalized services and advertisements for consumers. Many American such as Nicholas Carr who wrote the article “Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty, With Real Dangers,” Anil Dagar who wrote the article “Internet, Economy and Privacy,” and Grace Nasri who wrote the article “Why Consumers are Increasingly Willing to Trade Data for Personalization,” believe that the continuing loss of personal privacy may lead us as a society to devalue the concept of privacy and see privacy as outdated and unimportant. Privacy is dead and corporations, governments, and third parties murdered it for their personal gain not for the interest of the public as they claim. There are more disadvantages than advantages on letting corporations, governments, and third parties track and acquire data to personalized services and advertisements for us.
Although this practice benefits the user as well, unrestricted profiling can become an alarming catastrophe. Unless the threat to internet users privacy are shown to exceed the benefits, we should not regulate the internet, rather we should educate the public how to be more responsible about their identities. Various web-based companies have developed techniques to document their customer’s data, enabling them to provide a more enhanced web experience. One such method called “cookies,” employs Microsoft’s web browser, Internet Explorer. It traces the user’s habits.
6. Daniel Lin, Michael C. Loui, "Taking the Byte Out of Cookies: Privacy, Consent, and the Web" Computers and Society, June 1998.
The other type of information includes non-personal information about customers which are collected using servers and other technology. Qantas website can collect such information using techniques of online researches which are internet based research that requires very few resources and has a quick access over large respondents (Buchanan 2009). Online research can be done through online tracking and observing customer browsing habits with the help of cookies. Cookies are small text files stored on the system hard drive by a website or web server that are used to keep track of websites visited by users (Buchanan, Gallant, and Miller 2010). It was found that after the introduction of cookies the web started to become a space capable of extraordinary monitoring (Schwartz 2001). Cookies enable Qantas to keep logs of customers’ use of their website as well as non-Qantas webpage’s visited by customers. Cookies track information such as the number
The Internet is being used by almost all the people on Earth, 7.1 Billion, (Wikipedia) and gains new users every hour. The users of the internet visit Google and Facebook the most and they share all sorts of information with these companies, such as their name, birthday, address and even banking information! Unfortunately for these users, these companies are not protecting their content and information. They use their information to sell ads, make profit, and even present the users’ content free of charge! These hideously terrible problems that are mainly caused by Google and Facebook are caused for the relentlessly obvious reason that many users refuse to read the privacy terms of such companies, regarding their importance.
(Relevancy Statement) Okay, so you’re probably wondering, “why should I sit here and listen to you ramble on about cookies for 5 minutes?” Well, at the end of this speech, you can have a free cookie, so bear with me guys.
The issue on privacy is extremely controversial in today’s world. As the United States’ use of the internet, a global web of interconnected computer networks, expands, so does its problem with privacy invasion. With the U.S. pushing for new laws governing internet use, citizens are finding their privacy being pulled right from underneath them. Web users are buying and selling personal information online as well as hacking users for more information. One may argue that there is no such thing as privacy on the internet, but privacy is a right among Americans, and should be treated as such.
The privacy of the individual is the most important right. Without privacy, the democratic system that we know would not exist. Privacy is one of the fundamental values on which our country was founded. There are exceptions to privacy rights that are created by the need for defense and security.
Cookies are used to enable us to present appropriate messages to our customers. For example, to:
Privacy is the condition where someone personal information can not be documented and be used by others (Parent, 1983). Privacy has been and continues to be a significant issue of concern for both current and prospective electronic commerce customers. The foll...
Imagine walking in a store or logging into a website and getting bombarded with questions about your personal information. Companies all around the world ask their customers so many personal things so that they can “snoop.” Snooping is to investigate or look around furtively in an attempt to find out something, especially information about someone's private affairs.By “snooping” the company's target certain people and use their website as one of the tools. Companies all around the world are “snooping” by getting certain customers to shop, designing their website accordingly, and asking personal information from shoppers for rewards rewards programs so they can snoop.
The current direction most online companies are moving towards is creating a lot of backlash from critics and consumers of the online services and products. The invasion of privacy is often the result of companies mishandling personal information or intellectual property of ...
Many users are subject of Security and Privacy on the Internet issue. The term "information" now is more used when defining a special product or article of trade which could be bought, sold, exchanged, etc. Often the price of information is higher many times than the cost of the very computers and technologies where it is functioning. Naturally it raises the need of protecting information from unauthorized access, theft, destruction, and other crimes. However, many users do not realize that they risk their security and privacy online.