The browser asks on each website which cookies you want to accept. This is sometimes annoying, but the small data collectors have become indispensable in today’s Internet.
What sounds delicious has a stale aftertaste in the digital world – and not just because we have to decide whether or not to allow digital cookies when we visit a website. They are cookies that collect data to create user profiles – but also other important functions.
Cookies make surfing easier
Basically, a cookie is a block of data that a website creates when it is opened on the visitor’s PC, tablet or smartphone. If he calls up the website again later, the web server reads the cookie and can use the information stored in it.
For example, the visitor does not have to repeatedly enter a username and password when switching back and forth between different pages on a web domain. Cookies also ensure that the shopping cart is retained when the user surfs in an online shop.
In order to recognize the user, an ID number is created when a website is visited for the first time. A cookie usually also contains an expiry date. But that can vary. For example, a so-called session cookie ends as soon as you leave the website. Other cookies, on the other hand, can last for several years.
Continue reading: Google plans to phase out advertising cookies by 2024
Third-party tracking and user profiling cookies
Such long-term cookies are mainly used in marketing to record the surfing behavior of a user. This process is called tracking. The more information is known about a user, the better one knows their likes and dislikes, the easier it is to present them with suitable advertising messages on the screen.
In order to track surfing behavior not only within a website, but ideally across all websites visited, cookies from third parties (third-party cookies) are used. The provider thus receives extensive information about the surfing behavior of a user from all websites on which the website operator has allowed the cookie to be set.
GDPR – the danger of filtered information
At first glance, it seems useful when a user receives advertising about products that interest him. Nevertheless, it is annoying when, after buying a dress shirt online, you see advertisements for even more dress shirts on all other websites.
The whole thing becomes questionable when information, such as news, is filtered using user profiles on the screen. There is a risk that the user only receives information that is in the interest of a company or, for example, a political group.
In the past, sites automatically created user profiles without the consent of visitors – even in the EU. However, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) restricts the possibilities of this tracking. Since the GDPR came into force, every website visitor has decided whether to accept other cookies in addition to the technically necessary (essential) ones.