When agreeing to cookies on a website, what exactly am I agreeing to?
In: Technology
Cookies are often used to track your preferences when you visit a site. Examples: What sections you visited, types of products you looked at, what default settings you prefer, etc. so that next time you visit the site it can load those preferences for you automatically.
Also, other sites can also look at your cookies and set their preferences accordingly. Which is why when you do a Google search for cowboy boots, you suddenly see ads for cowboy boots everywhere you go on the web.
Besides this being somewhat annoying for some, cookies can also be dangerous for others, e.g. a woman in an abusive relationship who may have secretly been looking for a women’s shelter could inadvertently give away that fact to her abuser.
You are agreeing to allow the site to store data on your computer. Only that specific website can access that data and only when you access the website (the browser enforces this by attaching the cookie to requests only to that specific website). They usually store details like if you are currently logged in, which is why when you access the website on a new computer you have to log in again (since there is no cookie on that computer yet).
There’s a lot of wrong or at the very least uninformed answers in here.
## Most sites that use popups don’t understand why they do
The first thing to know is that this cookie popup is overused for reasons that the people who run these sites don’t care to understand. Nearly every site uses cookies or something like them, but *only those that use such tech to track your actions outside of the requirements of the site must have a popup.*
For example, if you have a website that lets you login to see private stuff, or update your profile etc. *you don’t need a popup*. Have a site with a shopping cart? *No popup needed*.
The directive only applies when type using cookies in a way that’s not a basic functionality of the site. Say for example if you’re using cookies to track people’s movements on the site for your own records, or if you’re traking people across different sites *(coughfacebookcough)*.
## It’s not a cookie law
The ePrivacy Directive does not refer to cookies directly. The directive was written to intentionally avoid tying the spirit of the law to the technology of the time. It applies to things like LocalStorage, Flash cookies, etc. as well. You need to acquire consent to track user behaviour if that tracking isn’t an obvious requirement for using the site (like a shopping cart).
## Not GDPR
I know that for non-Europeans, you’re only going to hear about the occasional Big Thing that comes out of the EU, but you should resist the temptation to bundle everything under one headline just because it’s what you’ve heard… especially when it’s pretty obvious that these cookie popups started appearing *years* before GDPR was even mentioned.
These popups are the (misinformed) reaction to the [ePrivacy Directive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_and_Electronic_Communications_Directive_2002), a move by the EU to try to force websites that are collecting data on people to disclose that fact. [The General Data Protection Regulation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation) is a separate set of rules that apply to your rights as an EU citizen in dealing with tech companies. Among other things, it:
* Requires that a company can’t store stuff about you that it doesn’t need to perform the services you asked them to do for you (via informed consent).
* Prohibits the sharing of any personally identifying information with third parties without informed consent.
* Requires that the company make available to you everything they have on you, and delete all of it from their system at your request.
They’re totally different things.
## So what are you agreeing to?
Well, *did you read it?* ‘Cause of you didn’t read it, you could be agreeing too anything. More often than not though, it’s some legal boilerplate acknowledging that the site uses cookies and that they’ll use that data for whatever they want. The CEO probably heard this was what her friend was doing on their site, so she ordered her web nerd to do the same and stopped thinking about it.
Follow up question that I didn’t see asked.
What happens if you don’t click ‘ok’ but you continue to use the website?
Are cookies only stored after clicking ‘ok’ or are they storing cookies by default and the pop-up is just a requirement to let you know?
They want to put these baked goods inside your computer.
Except these baked goods actually contain pieces of information.
And some bad people will want to see and eat your cookies.
You’re agreeing to let the website put a tiny little text file on your computer (or phone). Websites will then read this little text file to learn stuff about you.
Some will use it to save you time, by “remembering” your login and password which they read from the text file.
Many will read *all* the text files left by different sites you visited. That lets them figure out where you’ve been online, what you like, and what kind of advertising to show you.
Its like getting your hand stamped when going to a fun park with food. You have to buy a ticket, but after you do, they stamp you so they know you’ve been inside the park. If you wash off the stamp, they’ll have to see your ticket again, but with a stamp, you can just show them your hand and be back to riding fun rides super quick. In fact, you can leave the park and come back, show them the stamp, and they’ll let you in right away!
edit: please note that this is very simplified. read some of the discussions to get a better grasp of why they do this in the first place, how this can violate privacy, and why that can be a problem.
It’s like when you meet a neighbour for the first time in a new neighborhood and they give you a name tag so they’ll remember who you are next time, and other people on that street will also know who you are and what your name is.
Explaining like you’re truly 5: Agree with the cookies company to let them know where you put your cookies, which kind of cookies you like the most, which time do you usually eat your cookies, which pant you’re wearing eating cookies, and many more info you wouldn’t think you want to share with them.
For the curious, on Chrome you can see cookies by:
1. Right-mouse click > Inspect
2. Application Tab
3. Expand the cookies option on the left side menu
4. Click into any of them to see what’s being stored
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