- Cookie 3 0 32 – Protect Your Online Privacy Fence
- Cookie 3 0 32 – Protect Your Online Privacy Concerns
Cookie-based ad tracking has evolved through the years. From simple operations like counting ad impressions, limiting popups, and preserving ad sequence, third party ad serving cookies have evolved to user profiling/website preference tracking. This latter group of activities—ad tracking, that has attracted a lot of controversy among online consumer privacy groups and other. Some web pages will send as many as a dozen requests for cookies and many web sites tell you flatly that in order to use their online service 'cookies must be enabled on your browser' to use the site. However, cookies can be set to aggressively track and gather user’s online browsing habits for some advertising purposes to invade your privacy. Therefore, if you do not like the idea of being monitored, have a good habit to clear the cookies whenever you could to protect your own privacy. Exercising Your Consumer Rights: If you are a California resident, you have the right to request (1) more information about the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected and disclosed for a business purpose in the last 12 months, (2) deletion of your personal information, and (3) to opt out of sales of your.
Cookies Anyone?
There is one particular issue that relates specifically to the web and your surfing, buying and e-mailing habits. You should know by now that every site you visit can place a 'cookie' on your hardrive which will record a few crumbs of information about you.
This is harmless enough at first glance when all they seem to care about is the time, date, length of stay and pages you visited at their site. But when you know that advertisers that serve ads from the sites you visit can also track your visit, link it to other stored data about you gathered at other sites and finally to any other information they have stored about you, how do you feel?
This means that the harmless little 'session number' or 'state data' gathered about you from every site you've ever visited, every product you've ever purchased online and every banner you've ever clicked on is stored in the database of the ad server and distributed to it's clients!
To learn how to disable cookies on your computer, click here.
Information provided by the largest cookie bakery on the web, DoubleClick
It is possible to set your browser to the 'Do Not Accept Any Cookies' option. I recommend you try it once, if only for the enlightenment about how many sources are collecting information about you. Some web pages will send as many as a dozen requests for cookies and many web sites tell you flatly that in order to use their online service 'cookies must be enabled on your browser' to use the site.
It gets tiring and frustrating clicking the 'OK' button in the warning box that appears each time your browser detects a request to set a cookie on your hard drive, if you've checked the 'notify me' option in preferences.
If you want to get a clearer picture of how cookies can be used to invade your privacy, I recommend an amazing demonstration of how you can be followed around the web without your knowledge. Privacy.net has set up a demo at:
http://www.privacy.net/track/
You'll see how providing information in bits and pieces to multiple web sites creates a cumulative database on your travels, habits and preferences online. Prepare to be mildly miffed or fully outraged, depending on your level of concern with invasion of privacy.
It is becoming increasingly complex to keep your private information to yourself. The biggest advertisers online have created a method which involves cookies which stop new cookies. You must get yourself a set of 'No Cookies For Me' cookies from a group set up by this online advertising brain trust. Now ya gotta have a new cookie to avoid getting any more cookies. No really, I couldn't eat another bite, please! If you'd like to follow this recipe for avoiding advertiser spying on your surfing habits, visit the Network Advertising Initiative web site and go to the OPT OUT page, which gives you the option to tick boxes to opt out of cookies served by the largest six online ad servers,
- DoubleClick
- Engage
- 24/7 Media
- Matchlogic
- Avenue A
- L90 Inc.
OK, now you're outta there, right? No, not necessarily. You've opted out but you use your wifes' computer or you use a different browser to visit sites that serve the cookies you don't want, so you have to visit the OPT OUT page again and check off those boxes for every computer and every browser you use. This could get a bit tedious! Most surfers don't know that the browser launched by their service provider might be different from the built-in browser launched by their operating system on start-up by the system. The ISP provided browser is yet another version. Which one are you using now and on which computer and did you visit the OPT OUT page with this one?
Fortunately, the NAI has set up a way for you to tell by going to the verification page, which looks for those opt-out cookies and verifies that you have them for each of the participating ad networks. If you don't, you can go back to the OPT OUT page and get new OPT OUT cookies. If that still doesn't work, you can go complain to someone set up to police the activity of these cookie monsters. Guess who arranged for this compliance service? Those same advertisers. HMMMM. Well it's better than nothing. Just visit the Arthur Anderson site called AndersonCompliance
Now you've filed a complaint and you can feel all better about it right? Well only if they get a volume of complaints that suggests a 'significant' problem has occurred based on the number of complaints filed, then they'll conduct an investigation. Man that's a relief! I wonder if those ad networks will keep paying these guys to tell them when they've gotten a significant number of complaints? I wonder how much they pay for this service and who monitors the people they are paying to tell them what they'd like to hear? They'd probably stop paying me if I played this role, because I'd be telling them every time a single complaint was lodged.
Here's a GREAT tool to get off the junkmail lists that is automated and easy. I've just stumbled across the single most useful online tool I've seen for easing junk mail and spam! By visiting the following URL and entering your name and mailing address, you can auto-generate letters including that information, along with any additional required stuff form individual companies, into printable letters directly from your browser that provide mailing addresses to dozens of marketing, credit reporting and other organizations preconfigured and merged into a personalized letter from yourself to those companies and organizations requesting to opt-out from junkmail! In ten clicks of the 'next form' letter, I was able to request removal from a raft of lists and it's possible to do more if you like by returning and choosing different companies from the online form!
https://www.newdream.org/junkmail/form.html
The site is a joint project with Center for a New American Dream, and the Center For Democracy in Technology cooperatively using technology to better facilitate Operation Opt-Out. I love it! If I could generate automated labels to affix to my envelopes and online postage, I'd call the tool remarkable! I will stop short of that and say this is extremely useful.
One of the best ways to protect your privacy online is to use a virtual private network (VPN). See our VPN reviews to find the best one for you.
What's a cookie?
If you've been anywhere on the internet, you've probably heard of cookies (also known as computer cookies or HTTP cookies). These are small files that websites want to put on your computer and store in your web browser.
But should you accept or block cookies?
Cookies don't infect your computer with malicious software or viruses. They're basically just text files to be read by whatever website or third party put them there. They have a range of uses, some you may like more than others.
The good news is it's not an all-or-nothing affair. Most browsers let you control which kinds of cookies are allowed. Here's how to manage them in Google Chrome, Apple's Safari, and Microsoft Edge – the Windows 10 default browser that replaced Internet Explorer.
But before you decide, you need to understand what each type of cookie does.
First-party cookies
First-party cookies belong to the website you're currently on and don't track what you do on other websites.
There are two kinds of first-party cookies:
Session cookies
These are short-lived and are usually deleted when your browser closes.
Without these cookies, every time you clicked a link – even to load a new page on the same website – it would forget you'd ever been there. For example, say you're shopping online and you add an item to your cart. If you then view another item on a different page, once the new page loads your cart would be empty because there'd be no way to track what you did previously.
Or perhaps a website asked you what language you'd prefer. Without session cookies, you'd have to re-select it with each new page.
Cookie 3 0 32 – Protect Your Online Privacy Fence
Persistent cookies
These live on in your browser after it closes, but self-destruct after a predetermined time – usually within six months. If you ever asked a website to remember your login details, it did so with a first-party persistent cookie.
Persistent cookies may also be used to remember what you read or did while you were on the site, to avoid showing you the same content if you log back on later. While some persistent cookies are first-party, not all are.
Third-party cookies
These are also persistent. They're often used for tracking your movements to gain marketing or demographic data.
If you disable third-party cookies it'll make it harder for advertisers to get information about your online activity. You'll still see ads; they just probably won't be tailored to your interests.
Third-party cookies have also been blamed for slowing down web page loading times. Some browsers, such as Safari and Firefox, block them by default. Others let you opt-out in their settings menu.
How to manage cookies in Google Chrome
At the top-right of a browser window, click the menu button (three vertical dots), then Settings. Scroll down and click Advanced.
In the Privacy and Security section, click Content Settings then Cookies. Turning cookies off completely would disable all the features we've talked about so far, not just the tracking ones. So it's advisable to not block them entirely.
If you enable Keep local data online until you quit your browser, you'll still be able to add items to a shopping cart, but every time you close your browser you'll lose things like automatic sign-ins on your favourite websites.
Block third-party cookies stops the marketing-led cookies that track your internet usage and patterns, while leaving the more-useful cookies running.
If you'd like a fresh start with your new cookie settings, you can delete all your current ones. Click See all cookies and site data, then Remove All.
How to manage cookies in Safari (on macOS)
Since a Safari update in 2017, third-party cookies are blocked by default.
To manage your cookie settings, open Safari and click the Safari menu at the top-left (next to the Apple menu) and select Preferences. In the following window, select Privacy.
Prevent cross-site tracking should be enabled by default. This stops third-party cookies that track you across websites for advertisers.
Ask websites not to track me requests websites to not use both third-party and first-party persistent cookies. It's up to the website to respect your request.
Block all cookies will stop third-party cookies, but also the first-party cookie features mentioned earlier.
To delete the cookies you already have, click Manage Website Data and select cookies from individual websites on the list and click Remove, or select Remove all to delete the lot.
Cookie 3 0 32 – Protect Your Online Privacy Concerns
How to manage cookies in Microsoft Edge
Click the ellipsis (…) icon at the top right and select Settings. Scroll down and under Advanced settings, select View advanced settings. Scroll down again and under Cookies there are three options: Block all cookies, Block only third party cookies and Don't block cookies.
If you want to stop other parties tracking your online activity, select Block only third party cookies. This should make it harder for targeted advertisers and data analytics firms to get information about you.
If you Block all cookies then none of the functions we mentioned earlier will work (auto login, adding items to a shopping cart, etc.) and some websites may become unusable.
To delete the cookies you already have, go to Settings then under Clear browsing data, click Choose what to clear. Make sure Cookies and saved website data is ticked, then hit Clear.