Have you ever visited a website and saw a pop up about cookies? Well, unfortunately, they aren’t cookies from the oven. Rather they are text files. Websites use session, persistent, and third-party “cookies” that store small pieces of data on your computer and collect specific info about your visit to their website. Websites use cookies to understand your buying and browsing activities, so as to increase the website’s success in online advertising. Not only do the websites use cookies, but they also use web beacons.
What are Cookies?
Cookies are small text files stored on your computer whenever you visit a website. There are these things called session cookies and persistent cookies.
- Session cookies – are temporarily stored in your computer’s memory then deleted automatically after closing your browser
- Persistent cookies – the web page’s server will store the cookies in your hard drive and won’t delete them even when you close your browser.
Cookies collect your information, which includes your data and online activities over time and on different sites. Cookies are great for websites because they can track usage, browsing preferences, and they allow websites to customize and improve your browsing experience.
Cookies can make your web browsing more personal and faster because they remember your preferences and recognize you when you come back. Cookies also let the website see how you use the site. The information is used to create your “profile” for future marketing reasons, detect and prevent site misuse, and improve the site experience.
Web Beacons
Web beacons do somewhat the same thing. Web beacons are transparent image files that monitor your website’s browsing journey. Web beacons are also called web bugs and/or clear GIFs, and are used to monitor traffic. Web beacons are often transparent images that are a part of web pages. All web beacons do is count users who visit certain pages. After counting the users, web beacons generate statistics about how a website is used. Web beacons aren’t used for accessing personal information. You cannot decline web beacons. What you can do is change your browser setting to decline cookies or ask you for a response every time you visit a website to keep web beacons from tracking your web activity.
How do They Affect You?
Cookies are used for many reasons like helping websites see the most popular features, counting visitors on a page, improving the user’s experience, and keeping the website’s services secure. But, there’s always a downside.
Cookies and web beacons can affect a distinguishing factor, your privacy. Tracking cookies gather information about you without your permission. The information can be used to make browsing history profiles so you are targeted with more specific ads.
Some websites use third-party cookies for tracking traffic to their site from advertising they use on other sites. Although the info that cookies collect is anonymous, a cookie could end up in your hard drive from a site you haven’t visited yet as a result.
Did you know that viruses and malware can disguise as cookies? Hackers controlling malicious websites send supercookies to potentially interrupt or impersonate real user requests to another website with the same domain. A hacker can fake login into the website you’re using to gain your personal information.
If you are uncomfortable with what cookies do, you can decline or accept them anytime. Modify your browser settings because browser settings are usually automatically accepting cookies. You can decline all cookies automatically, or request that they ask you to respond whenever cookies are offered. Declining cookies might slow down a site’s performance and prevent you from accessing all of the site’s services and features.