I saw Tom Scott’s video about how cookies are how your computer talks to the server and all that and fingerprinting and stuff, but you’re supposed to be able to say no to cookies, right? Most websites don’t have an option to say no. I’ve noticed that I usually get a banner that just says “accept all cookies” at the bottom of the website, but you can use the website anyways. Knowing the world we live in, I assume the cookies are active even if you never click the accept button? I’m guessing there’s some loophole thing that’s like “by using our site you agree to cookies even if you don’t push accept” or something.
In: Technology
Not all cookies are created equal. Some are tracking, some are authentication. If sites pop up and allow you to refuse, generally they are not authentication based and not necessary. I have been testing this and refused any site that allows me to and seen no performance degradation.
[removed]
A recent proposition in California attempted to make it so that companies could degrade service quality if data isn’t provided (cookies declined) but claimed to increase consumer privacy in other ways.
Unfortunately It’s a bit like asking ‘how long is a peice of string?’ Cookies may have come to be primarily associated with things like user tracking, the reality is they’re a fairly generic internet technology. What will happen if you block them will depend on –
– What the cookie is being used for
– How the website has been written
– What web browser you’re using.
Effects could vary from the site fails to function, or even render properly, all the way through to no discernable effect at all.
Depends on how the site implemented it. GDPR (Europe) law prohibits the site from setting any non essential cookies (essential meaning cookies that have to be set for the site to work properly, i.e. language preference, or setting a cookie if you log in, so you stay logged in) without the user consent. The site shouldn’t set them before you click accept, so not clicking anything should be the same as clicking “decline”. But as you might guess not every site obeys this. If you are in the US, there’s a similar law in California state (CCPA), but this one works slightly different – you have to opt out manually. So in this case they can set the cookies without your consent, but have to remove them and stop setting them once you require to be opted out.
source: I am a web developer for a data company that has to comply by both of these laws.
Latest Answers