What happens to my data if I ignore the “accept cookies” button on a website and continue to browse it?
In: Technology
Well cookies are just a text-string in a key/value pair, so they aren’t doing anything to your data. They’re just storing temporary data about you, either to identify you should you visit again, to keep some settings about you in memory, or to store some miscellanous information that’s better used on the fly than stored in the database (Lat/Lng coordinates can be one if you’ve used a location lookup for stores, as an example).
Cookies aren’t inherently malicious, and can’t be directly traded/used between websites. It’s when used in corellation with other code that they can be used to actually track you, but that’s a active choice on the websites behalf, and it’s only then that there’s any kind of data exchange really happening (profiling you usually).
I’m pretty sure it just continues to use cookies regardless of whether or not you accept it.
That message is telling you they use cookies or might use them, it isn’t asking your permission. You are accepting that you read the popup. Some sites will close if you hit no/cancel, which is neat.
That is up to your browser on your computer. The website asks your browser to store cookies on your computer (generally small pieces of information what you did on the website, including “what did the user click last time when we showed this cookie banner”). The browser can simply not do that, or it can delete the cookies as soon as you leave the site or restart your browser, or keep them – all that is configurable.
remember when there was this huge deal about privacy and they announced these new measures to control it better and all that? All we got was that annoying ”accept cookies or die” message and changed absolutely nothing
Depends on the website.
Pro-Tip: Use U-block origin. It blocks many “accept cookies” buttons along with most data collection.
Cookies are kind of way of how websites can keep in track of you you did in their website and how can profile you as a user.
It is mostly used to have a “better” user experience and recommend some stuff based on your history.
Imagine if you go to a restaurant and order a food . The restaurant will keep in track what you were looking at the menu and what you have ordered.
Next time you go to that same restaurant, they are already familiar with what you have ordered and will recommend food for you based on your previous orders .
In some cases, some restaurants can use another company to keep track of you. Let’s say “Ad Company”. They will use Ad company to keep track of your orders / behaviours and will recommend foods based on it.
If other restaurants use the same Ad company, then they can kind of share your behaviours to each other for “better food suggestions”
Try it by disabling cookies entirely. Some sites work, some do a check and refuse to continue… not because cookies are actually required for anything (except login). They just choke “because fuck you”.
If you’re rolling without cookies you can block the popup by using an adblocker like ublock origin. Right click on the page and choose block element, hover over the element you want to block.
Same as if you told the Jiffy Lube guy not to put that little sticker in the upper left corner of your windshield. Nothing.
Information Security student here, I started working with cookies in the browser this semester, from what I understand (but im no expert) there are different kinds of cookies.
First of all, what is a cookie:
cookies are locally saved data that the browser/website needs to keep track of, but can’t/won’t safe on their servers cause reasons.
From what I know there are many uses for cookies, you have more essential type of cookies, for example the ones that safe the fact that you are logged in, if it didn’t, you’d have to log in every time you do anything…. ather types of important cookies are anti fraud cookies etc. won’t go into those now. usually when you only check essential cookies you only get these. these can be saved for a limited time, or very long.
Cookies can also be used for ather purposes. most of the time when you have to accept them, you are dealing with third party cookies. these are cookies mostly used to keep track of behaviour, trends and intrests. see it as a automatic enquete. this info will be used by the receivers to get insights into their users, and also give you personalized ads and info.
People are always scared that people are looking at your data, and even though I also try to avoid accepting cookies, I don’t believe actual humans are looking at my data. It’s mostly a digital process that will happen automatically and there is a very slim chance that someone is looking at your data specifically. though data is power, so if you don’t like giving these parties your info for free, you have all the rights to decline these cookies.
this is my take though, please add any missing info
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