Saturday
Nov 22nd
| Big Brother Now Eats Cookies |
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| Written by John McCarthy Director LeadSure | |||||||
Page 2 of 5 History Lou Montulli working for the newly formed Netscape invented cookies in 1994 . They were created for the simple reason that without some form of tracking device websites would be blind and deaf. They are in part a contribution to the dynamic nature of the Internet. They make life easier and web browsing a more interactive experience. Types of cookies There are different types of cookies; JavaScript cookies and Java cookies are two examples. Cookies can be created for different purposes, to remember us, to calculate our regional taxation band, in fact anything the designer of the site either asks us or information they decide to collect. Some cookies use a cgi-bin others do not. An example of how a cookie is created and the code used is at www.cookiecentral.com How Cookies are Transmitted Cookies are clandestinely placed on our computer in a special folder dedicated for that purpose. The transmission of cookies from the server to the users machine is transparent to the user. They are placed there with the consent of the web browser used to view the site. It is an interesting question to ask "How many users of computers are aware of the permissions given to web browsers to do such things?" In every other download that takes place user permission is required before downloading a file, yet cookies are downloaded without user consent or knowledge. Are most users even aware that when we install a program such as a web browser we are giving the program itself rights on the system? Web Browsers and Cookies Web browsers development has responded to this and later versions of all web browsers now have options to block cookies from sites. David M Kristol of Bell Laboratories and Lou Montulli of Netscape recommended this in Internet RFC (2109) on cookies in 1997. However two major web browsers did not implement this until their level four versions sometime after these recommendations. The latest versions do give more flexibility and choice regarding cookies. Internet Explorer 6.0 gives the option to block cookies and other options. Some sites though will not let you view them without using a cookie and this can cause inconvenience to the user. Cookies and Third Party Use So far we have looked at cookies as an aid to user experience on the Internet. Cookies though can be used for other purposes. The following explains how a third party could obtain and use a cookie. Suppose I had a website and I was collecting data and I wanted to increase my revenue from advertising. I could sell the information stored to an advertising agency that with specialised skills would be able to use this information to enhance the users experience by giving them targeted adverts based on their previous purchases or pages visited on the site. So now the site remembers the users name and address but also that they went to Italy last year and so may be interested in more foreign holidays. So adverts for that user would reflect this. In other words the adverts on the site would be based on the users past activity, each user could get different adverts. This is effective marketing, I would not want to sell garden furniture to a person in a high rise block of flats. So, in order for this user specific advertising to work, the adverts are not part of the host's site but are linked URL's to the agencies server where they can check their database and return the most effective advert for the user, no problem. So this is the crucial stage, suppose I am an advertising agency and I have data from one company about it's site users. If I put a cookie there for my advert I could collate this data and sell it to another company or create a profile of the user from the other sites I have adverts in and know they have visited. This profile could be constantly updated and used to target the user with more direct marketing strategies for example email. There is a very good chance that if you look in your cookie folder (c: windowscookies) you will find a cookie from doubleclick.net. I doubt that you have even heard of this company let alone visited their website, so where did this cookie come from? What do doubleclick.net do? Well they are the advertising agency mentioned in my example earlier, their business is precisely to track users on the Internet and target adverts towards them. They make money doing this and they are a multi national company that has been around along time. A quote from their site gives a perspective of the infrastructure they have both in terms of hardware and global reach. |
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