Monday, May 14, 2012

The Ups and Downs of Cookies

I walked into my son's room about midnight last night and was pretty upset. I said, "Google won't let me log into my blog site unless I accept cookies." He just sort of looked at me and went on with whatever he was doing. So, today we went out to a place that sells bagels and bagel sandwiches that I like and I ordered a blueberry bagel with sprouts, Swiss cheese, mustard and mayo and avocado as a bagel sandwich and I had a fresh squeezed orange juice as well.

As we sat and talked my son is very knowledgeable and up to date regarding anything tech, programming, software, or even building computers or repairing my Iphone. So he said, "You don't fully understand, Dad, what cookies really do these days. They are not designed to trace everywhere someone goes on the Internet. Their primary purpose is to allow connectivity so websites and everything interconnected works more fluidly and in a more interconnected way. The people that should be worried about cookies would be stockbrokers who do online transactions or something like that. But for most people they are helping them more than they are harming them. They were designed for connectivity and smoother operations of the Internet. But yes, they can be used by hackers within governments, corporations, criminals or just kids to find out almost anything they want to know about specific groups or even individuals. So, they actually do more good than harm. That is why they were designed in the first place and not as a hacking device."

So, I was surprised because to me "cookies" had only been a dirty word because I hadn't understood that they were a part of an overall design tool within Internet software. But it is important to note that many people make money off your personal information by selling it to the highest bidder worldwide. And one of the ways this is done is through tracking cookies.

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