Cookies are kinda BS...

[heatemyfather]

Engage Rant Mode...

I'm talking about website cookies (they have zero calories!) I suppose for a lot of people they're invisible things that don't impact on their lives much from day to day... but do they? Cookies are what drives personalised adverts to your devices, they're what tracks your every action (depending on the device), for me they're a nonsense and irrelevant, and I really wish the Internet would change this so that the cookies lived server-side, or at least give us the option in some browser setting, or perhaps they are legally and strictly limited to login session maintenance only.

I tend to block a lot of these invisible cookies, especially the kind that do nothing but track stuff, I run my browser always in Privacy Mode (does not record history etc once the tab or window is closed), so when I close my web browser everything gets deleted - history, cache, cookies, the lot. Any websites that I was logged into get 'logged out', not because I logged out, but because their little cookies are all gone. Now one could argue that I bring this upon myself, but I say no - cookies were fine when they were only used to maintain a website login, but now they are far more insidious, who knows what things they get up to! Especially from the likes of Facebook and Google, two massive companies who make their fortunes on their user's data (case in point: Zuckerberg is currently very angry at Apple for implementing privacy measures on their iOS devices which effectively cripples Facebook's invasive tracking stuff, thereby kyboshing their shifty business model).

My solution? Keep these cookies server-side. What do most users expect from a cookie but for it to maintain their login session to a website? Nothing. So, the server knows who is logged in and on what device (every device has unique identifiers, no personal information should be required, no passwords, just the user id for the website in question), so store these few bytes of information on the server. People should take more interest and have more control over their devices and data by default.

It annoys me sometimes how little the internet has actually progressed in the last 20 years, I still blame Bill Gates for this!

Rant over.

[moonwitch]

[theElench]

Isn't this what is called cyber-servitude? We all provide MS, FB, Google et al with our data for free and then they use it against us in so many ways?

What ads. we see, what our browser newsfeed feeds us. Obay proudly announced that it had introduced what it called A.I to personalise which of a million seller ads. it would decide we really wanted to see, (with just a slight slant to push us towards the ones that make them the most money).

Anyone who has access to Netflix, I'd recommend that they watch one of their productions called "A Social Dilemma". Since I watched it I've stopped automatically ticking "I Agree" on those annoying Privacy Policies Boxes that block-out chunks of whatever I'm trying to view. (Aren't they so intrusive simply to nudge you into ticking whichever box gets them to disappear quickest??) I've started actively trying to turn as many as possible off.

I'm not "Tech-savvy" enough to try tampering with my browser settings but at least once a week I go to Control Panel > Internet > System & Security and delete my browsing history.

[Idealproductsales]

Even with server side info, your browser still needs to accept a cookie - at the very least, the session cookie (which is just a unique identifier and the data retained on server side) - without it, there's no feasible way to carry your data to the next page when you click a link (unless you like a mile-long URL with all the info passed in the URL which is far less secure) .. it USED TO BE that browsers were much more strict about how they handle, accept, and send cookies.. You still can set them up that way (by only allowing cookies for the website you are actually on, so other websites - I.E. ad companies cannot set cookies in your browser unless you are actually on that ad company's website) However, I myself don't even bother with it - I'm not so paranoid that I even care about google or other ad sites tracking what I do on the web (since I do nothing much really, and could care less about what ads are shown since most if not all are already blocked anyhow..)

[heatemyfather]

Even with server side info, your browser still needs to accept a cookie - at the very least, the session cookie (which is just a unique identifier and the data retained on server side)

I wouldn't object to a session cookie, so long as that's all it was and contained the bare essential information required to maintain a login. It's all the rest of it that I object to and will block and grumble about. The internet used to be a refreshing change from TV, freedom to look at what we wanted, when we wanted, but since the advertisers got their teeth into it I now miss the old TV, I can watch that and not worry about targeted ads or data collection (I'm talking about over-the-air TV, not streaming services). The way things are going I see this old fashioned TV slowly dying out, if we don't push back it'll be pretty much just like Buy 'n Large from Wall.e shoved in our faces 24/7.

[Idealproductsales]

I wouldn't object to a session cookie, so long as that's all it was and contained the bare essential information required to maintain a login. It's all the rest of it that I object to and will block and grumble about. The internet used to be a refreshing change from TV, freedom to look at what we wanted, when we wanted, but since the advertisers got their teeth into it I now miss the old TV, I can watch that and not worry about targeted ads or data collection (I'm talking about over-the-air TV, not streaming services). The way things are going I see this old fashioned TV slowly dying out, if we don't push back it'll be pretty much just like Buy 'n Large from Wall.e shoved in our faces 24/7.

Pretty much is already headed that way.. myself , and many people I know locally, have done a lot of cord cutting.. but the local TV provider is also about the only High Speed internet provider (other than DSL from Verizon, which speed sucks, but pretty reliable uptime.. cable has frequent random outages lasting anywhere from 10 minutes to several hours) Anyhoo.. Just have to realize, nothing is free - Internet has to get paid for somehow.. hence, advertisers paying to get their ads targeted and in front of the people most likely to buy.. hence the need for ad delivery companies (Google, Microsoft, Facebook namely) to have to develop detailed data of the users, in order to get paid for the ads they want to show (and the more targeted they can make an ad, the more an advertiser is willing to pay, which means much content such as Youtube, Facebook, and other social media sites are able to remain free to use, otherwise, you'd have to pay to play- imagine having to pay $25/month for each website where you want to promote your ebid listings on...?) So, I understand your disgust with the tracking and targeting, but on the other hand, I am very willing to tolerate that "intrusion" (which for the most part is easily blocked anyways) in order to keep all that content remaining free (as in Beer) I'm honestly surprised that DirecTV and Dish Network are still in business, given the cord cutting trend and the prevalence of streaming video.. (and, Jean and I both got a realization once when she spent a few days in hospital - she got frustrated with the TV, BECAUSE of the ads that she couldn't just fast forward through or skip.. LOL! We've been without a TV subscription for over 2 years now, and couldn't be happier (Myself, I just don't see the point any more - there's never anything on worthwhile watching, the news is all overhyped B.S. anymore, even the weather channel has become just another TV show with a break every so often for the local forecast.. only TV I watch anymore is Youtube channels about my chosen hobby/profession... or once in a while, amazon prime video when Im in the mood for an oldie (1970's-1980's TV shows.. they just don't make em like they used to.. Love me some Monty Python every now and then..)

[cambrensis]

What I object to is the lack of any form of intelligence, artificial or otherwise, in these things.
I have bought a " shut-me-off-winkie-valve" from your company. Now the ads want me to consider buying such an item from100 other companies - but nobody needs more than one! Stuff written by morons!! They have been on a "course" and either not understood the first thing, or their course was a fraud and they so dim they did not realise it! (This written by a very much retired educator who has seen this in action in the real world!!!)

We deserve better!!!

[theElench]

But like the OP said "Who knows what they're up to", personal data isn't just used for targeting adverts or content. That same data and the resulting profiles are used by every company and organisation that can afford to get hold of it. Banks analyse every transaction in every branch and decide which can be closed with least opposition.

Super-markets use it to work-out exactly how long a checkout queue can get before shoppers start abandoning their shop. Also how long a shopper will stand in the queue before getting impatient. From that it's a short step to demanding that checkout staff increase their "Through-put" speed (with penalties if they don't). And just one more short step for management to realise that with just a little quicker through-put they can sack half the checkout staff and still keep the shoppers relatively happy.

These days every key you touch on a key-board, everything you watch, view, "like" or buy on-line is sucked up and sold-on. Plus everything you buy at a computerised till and everything you wave a card at, where and when it happened and how long it will be 'till you do it again.

Even my Dentist is at it. "Due to Covid safety measures" they have outsourced their record keeping (good-bye to half the receptionists) and I'm required to hand-over far more personal data than the dentist ever needed to a company I've never heard of. A lot of it obviously commercially useful.

In the program I mentioned earlier it was called "Surveillance Capitalism", cookies are only one tip of the iceberg and it's only ever beneficial to big business.

[heatemyfather]

The topic of data collection in the wider world is a huge debate and a bit beyond the scope of my original rant. As far as cookies and such goes though, it wouldn't surprise me if it's someone like the EU that drives something through in that regard, they were responsible for the annoying cookie warning (which is purely an annoyance, very few websites actually offer a choice other than 'Accept all out tracking nonsense or pee off somewhere else.' and they make it an arduous task to go through any actual choices about what you want to allow them to collect, often it's so vague anyway to be meaningless), so once they've got bored of arguing about Bxt I think they might just bring in a load more internet privacy edicts... all inline their master plan, of course.

I myself subscribe to Amazon Prime mostly for the TV offerings - I know they will track what I watch, but it's a decent deal for the yearly sub, there's no news or adverts (who in their right mind pays to watch those?!), and there's a lot of stuff on there that I want to watch (mostly the stuff I can't get hold of easily on DVD) that isn't available elsewhere.

UPDATE: Speak of the devil... https://protonmail.com/blog/digital-...ent=2021_-_jan

[4Minutes]

What I object to is the lack of any form of intelligence, artificial or otherwise, in these things.
I have bought a " shut-me-off-winkie-valve" from your company. Now the ads want me to consider buying such an item from100 other companies - but nobody needs more than one! Stuff written by morons!! They have been on a "course" and either not understood the first thing, or their course was a fraud and they so dim they did not realise it! (This written by a very much retired educator who has seen this in action in the real world!!!)

We deserve better!!!

I once had someone complain that my website shouldn't really be showing ads for, errr, some rather intimate products. Didn't have the heart to tell him that it was a Google ad tailored by Google via the cookies he had on his PC.