A “cookie” is a small data file that can be placed on your hard drive when you visit certain web sites. It is placed there by your Internet service provider, companies whose sites you visit, and banner ad companies.
A cookie contains a unique user name the Web site assigns to your computer. It is a text file on your computer that identifies your computer to the company that placed the cookie on your hard drive. 3
Every time you visit that site in the future, the site server will look for the cookie to provide information about your computer. A cookie’s purpose is to remember information. It can remember your log-in name or password at a particular site so that you don’t have to type it in every time you visit that site. It remembers the banner ads you have seen and the pages you visited at a particular site.
One server cannot read another server’s cookie or any other files on your computer, but (and there is always a but), if the sites form an alliance they can read another site’s cookie. If this happens, they are able to compile even more information about your browsing habits that are stored on their servers for future use.
According to consumer-advocacy groups, cookies were meant to be site specific. The ad networks are sharing the information found in cookies on the server side across multiple sites.4
The information on your cookie file is anonymous unless you have supplied personally identifiable information to a particular site. If the sites are sharing information, they can now put a name to the computer user who is visiting the music site, the sport site or some undesirable site you don’t want anyone to know about.
The ad agencies that supply the banner ads that pop up on your screen use cookies to help them determine what your interests might be as you move from site to site, and you will eventually start seeing banner ads related to your interests. One of the major advertising companies on the Internet is DoubleClick. Their privacy policy originally stated that they would not identify you personally. Unfortunately, DoubleClick was not happy having ads pop up on the screen to anonymous browsers so in June 1999, it purchased the direct-marketing firm Abacus Direct for $1.7 billion.
The purchase of Abacus gave DoubleClick the ability to cross-reference the 100 million cookies that it has set with the names, addresses, telephone numbers and purchasing habits of 90% of American households. All DoubleClick has to do is tie your cookies to the cookies of another site from which you have ordered a product or which requires registration to get positive identification and link that to its Abacus database. Privacy advocates are upset because DoubleClick refuses to say which sites are furnishing the registration information, and they believe the sites that are furnishing the information are probably violating the privacy rights of the consumer. DoubleClick justified its actions by saying this will allow for more personalization of its online ads to better meet the needs of the consumer.5
Current statements on DoubleClick’s Web site say it will notify the public before it starts merging the online and offline records by updating its privacy policy. Privacy advocates are concerned that even if they put a notice on their Web site, most of the people do not know that DoubleClick is the advertising company that supplies the ads or that their movements are being tracked by this advertising company.6
The good news is you can change the settings on your computer to accept cookies, not accept cookies or be prompted when a site is trying to send a cookie to your hard drive. When you use the prompt feature, you decide whether you want to accept or not accept a cookie at any given time. If your computer is set up to reject cookies, you may be denied access to certain web sites.
My computer uses Internet Explorer 5.0. To change the cookie settings, click Tools on the main menu bar, then click Internet Options, from this dialog box click Security, check to make sure the Zone in this dialog box is set to Internet, then click the Custom Level and scroll down until you find the Cookie section.
You can also delete the existing cookies on your hard drive. For Internet Explorer 5.0, go to Windows Explorer, click Windows in the C drive, click the Cookie folder, highlight the cookie or cookies you want to delete and hit the delete key.
Some sites will also use session cookies, “meaning that they are automatically deleted at the end of a session”7
In many cases you have control over the personal information that is collected based on the information that you personally supply when you order an item or service, register for contests, or sign up for free items or service. Your responsibility at this point is to know what information is absolutely necessary for you to supply in order to receive your request.