Before you click on 'Accept Cookies' or 'Reject Cookies', read this. (2024)

Cookies are information passed between each user's browser and web server to enable websites to identify users. Web beacons are small graphic data, also known as clear GIFs, that recognize user activity, such as if and how often a user has visited a website. Privacy issues that cookies do have is Storing personal information and tracking user behavior. While cookies by themselves cannot dig or research your information or search your computer, they do store personal information in at least two ways—form information and ad tracking. Guarding your privacy online can be overwhelming. Cookies, clickstream capture, pixels, web beacons, web collection forms and other similar technologies collectively are called (“Automatic Data Collection Tools”). Clickstream data, which is a log of the links and other content on which a visitor clicks while browsing a website. As the visitor clicks through the website, a record of the action may be collected and stored. We link certain data elements we have collected through automated means, such as your browser information, with other information. Fortunately, even a basic understanding of cookies can help you keep unwanted eyes off your internet activity. Whilst most cookies are perfectly safe, some can be used to track you without your consent by cybercriminals. If you use cookies to uniquely identify a device or the person using that device, these are considered personal data under the GDPR. This means that cookies used for analytics, advertising and functional services come within the ambit of the GDPR.

Cookies collect personal information. When cookies can be used to identify or single out individuals — they are considered personal data under the laws such as the General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR), the privacy Directive (EU Cookie Law), and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). First-party cookies are saved by the websites you initially visit. On the other hand, Third-party cookies originate from sites that you are not currently on. It is these third-party cookies that are also known as tracking cookies because they can track you and your online activities as you roam the internet. An example of a web beacon is of a company that owns multiple websites and uses a web beacon to track how users navigate among the different sites. The data can be used to make more efficient browsing changes. Web beacons are used to help the website owner track the journey of the user navigating through the website or a series of websites. They can be delivered through a web browser or in an email.

Cookies can track any kind of data about users, such as search and browser history, what websites they previously visited, what they googled earlier, their IP addresses, their on-site behavior such as scrolling speed, where they clicked and where their mouse hovered. Hackers can steal cookies through various methods, such as through XSS attacks, network sniffing, and social engineering tactics. It is important to keep in mind that deleting cookies does not eliminate all data tracking. Many websites can reconstruct your cookies, unless you clear your cache and browsing history, too. Even then, though, your device can still be fingerprinted. Cookies can be used to identify an individual, but cookies themselves do not contain any personal information. Cookies contain a unique ID which is a random string of characters assigned to a user's web browser. Cookies contain information such as pages visited on a website, items in the shopping cart, login details, search history and language preferences. They can also collect personally identifiable information such as name, email address, phone number and other personal data that users enter through website forms.

By editing or manipulating the cookie, the attacker can gain access to the user data stored in the cookie. Cookie poisoning attacks are dangerous because they enable attackers to use the data stored inside cookies to gain unauthorized access to users' accounts or to steal their identities. Tracking cookies are cookies that are either set on a user's web browser by the website they are on or by a third party. These cookies track the user's online behavior i.e., collect their data, such as clicks, shopping preferences, device specifications, location, and search history. In case you have never thought about the value of the data collected by cookies on your website. Website analytics often use cookies to track website visitors and logins and evaluate user data. To stop cookies from tracking, somewhere in your browser settings there is an option to toggle on Do Not Track. Enabling this feature will send a request for the website you are currently on to disable its cross-site user tracking of individual users. This includes tracking cookies. In general, when you “accept” cookies, you are giving consent for the website to run cookie scripts and similar technologies. This is not always a bad thing as cookies can be quite useful for various things like playing videos, shopping cart software, showing personalized ads, analytics and more. Most cookies are safe to accept. They are intended to personalize your online experience and add to your convenience when using a website. Third-party cookies, on the other hand, may not be safe to accept. Cookies can last on a user's browser till the time it is set to expire and typically last from seconds to years. The cookie expiration or cookie duration is either set by the website publisher or domains that drop the cookies. If you do not accept cookies – The potential problem with refusing to accept cookies is that some website owners may not allow you to use their websites if you do not accept their cookies. Another downside is that without acceptance, you may not receive the full user experience on certain websites.

Web beacons are tiny, transparent images that are embedded in web pages or emails. They are typically used for tracking purposes and can be used in conjunction with cookies to collect information about your browsing behavior. The Web beacon shows up in a graphical/picture format called GIF (Graphic Interchange Format), common to the Web. To the browser, it looks just like any other picture or image on a webpage, and the browser does not make a fuss about it. In other words, you and your Web browser simply do not recognize beacons. If you block web beacons on your router, they will stop working not just in your e-mail and on web pages, but also inside applications and even on your smart TV. To do this, we recommend that you enable Secure DNS in the operating system or router settings and specify a DNS server that blocks trackers. Beacons do not transmit any personal user data. The most prominent downside to web beacons relates to privacy concerns. Because web beacons can track behavior across websites and devices without the user's explicit knowledge or consent, they can lead to unwanted collection and potential misuse of personal data.

Beacons are Not Cost-Efficient. As beacons do not provide highly accurate location coverage, it might need to install more for the results to be closer to what you expected, yet that costs more money. Trackers use identifier tools to link information about you from different sites. This data is used to build up a user profile, based on your browsing history. Tracker profiling places users in groups and sells data to third parties so they can target certain users online. Persistent cookies: These are stored on your computer or mobile device until you delete them, or they reach their expiry date. These may, for example, be used to remember your preferences when you use the site. Cookies follow you online: Even if you hide your IP address with a VPN, cookies can track what you do online and form a partial ID of who you are. Third-party cookies sell your data: Some sites earn revenue by serving third-party cookies. Hackers can steal passwords using a technique called cookie scraping. Websites use cookies to store your login credentials and autofill or keep you logged into your account the next time you visit their website. Although this is convenient, it is easy to see the possible security concerns. Cookies can be used for malicious purposes though they store information about a user's browsing preferences and history, both on a specific site and browsing among several sites, cookies can be used to act as a form of spyware. Cybercriminals can use your cookies to learn more about you and profit from your private details, so they will try to steal them. This type of attack is called cookie hijacking, cookie side-jacking, or session hijacking. There are four main approaches to cookie hijacking: eavesdropping on user communication, gaining access to the user's computer, gaining access to the user's browser data, or gaining access to the web server memory used to store cookies.

Hackers can use cookies to spy on your online activity and steal your personal information, which they use for phishing. If they steal your cookies, then they can easily access your account without login. Unlike spyware and other malware, tracking cookies are not designed to steal passwords and other sensitive data. However, they can be hijacked. In some cases, hackers may even change your login details and other credentials so that you can no longer access them. To be as safe as possible online, it is necessary to delete your search history frequently. Failing to do so makes it much easier for hackers to collect enough of your personal information to scam and deceive you. When you use a browser, like Chrome, it saves some information from websites in its cache and cookies. Clearing them fixes certain problems, like loading or formatting issues on sites. Allowing a web site to create a cookie does not give the site access to the rest of your computer, and only the site that created the cookie can read it. Credit card information is never stored in cookies. Performance cookies collect information about your use of the website, such as Web pages visited and any error messages; they do not collect personally identifiable information, and the information collected is aggregated such that it is anonymous. Performance cookies are used to improve how a website works. Since tracking cookies are used to gather information about you without your authorization, they present a real threat to your online privacy. Tracking cookies like third-party cookies are not used to enhance your experience but rather to keep track of your activity across certain websites. To Check if your Chrome browser is managed. Open Chrome. At the top right, select More. Check the bottom of the menu. If you see “Managed by your organization,” your browser is managed. If you do not, your browser is not managed. Clearing your website visit history is simple: click History > Clear History. In the pop-up, pick a timeframe for how far back you want to erase. This is doing a lot more than deleting the browser history, however—it also takes out your cookies and data cache. A cookie can only be read by the site that created it.

Cookies are extremely important to security and privacy, and it would be a disaster if one website was able to read cookies from another website, so a lot of care is taken by browser developers to ensure that cookies can only be read by the site that created them. With cookies, sites can: Keep you signed in. Remember your site preferences. Give you locally relevant content. When you revisit the website, your browser sends the information back to the site. Usually, a cookie is designed to remember and tell a website some useful information about you. If you block all cookies, there are a few downsides. You may not be able to save products inside a shopping cart between sessions, you may have to log into a site every time you open and close your browser, and you may not get tailored ads, but may see irrelevant ads more frequently. If you experience any of the following: slow running or crashing browsers, difficulty loading websites or features, outdated or incorrect information or images on some websites, then, there is session cookies, held in memory, and which expire once the browser exits. Persistent cookies, which have a time-to-live, are persisted on disk, and are sent by the browser until their time-to-live has elapsed. For the most part, accepting cookies on a website will not result in any catastrophic event. However, something to take into consideration and be wary of is when a website asks if you want your device to remember what your login credentials are for that website. Beacons provide web analytics for websites and blogs that track how many people have viewed your site and user activity. This data can include what pages were visited the most, what areas on the page got the most attention, and where people tried to click. The views and clicks data we provide allow you to track the number of unique visitors to your site. Unique means the visitor is only counted once even if they have been to your page multiple times. With this, you will get an idea of how many people have visited your Beacons page.

Web beacons are tiny, transparent images that are embedded in web pages or emails. They are typically used for tracking purposes and can be used in conjunction with cookies to collect information about your browsing behavior. The dangers of being tracked is that it will be easily accessible by the criminal without the careful handling of your data. The worst of it is getting your money in the blink of an eye, usually in bank transactions. Others tend to uncover hidden secrets and private pictures. Being tracked without me knowing is possible and it is to track mobile phones even if location services are turned off. Turning off the location service on your phone can help conceal your location. This is important if you do not want third parties knowing where you are or being able to track your movement. Cookies can track any kind of data about users, such as search and browser history, what websites they previously visited, what they googled earlier, their IP addresses, their on-site behavior such as scrolling speed, where they clicked and where their mouse hovered. The use of Automatic Data Collection Tools to change the way our websites behave or look in order to personalize experience from information infer from user behavior on websites or information that may already know about user because, for example, a registered customer. These may be used to tailor the services being receive or the content, look and feel delivered to you on subsequent sessions to our websites. For example, if you personalize webpages, or register for products or services, Automatic Data Collection Tools help the webpage server recall specific information. If you use more than one device or computer on a regular basis, there may be set-up link for Automatic Data Collection Tools together so user will still receive a personalized online experience. Also personalizing the information based on what is already known to spend less time looking for things. With the use of Automatic Data Collection Tools, each visitor to the site can have a web experience which is unique. While people use the Internet, there can be a significant amount of data collection going on that they are not aware of. As one travels from website to website, one creates a trail of activity known as a clickstream. A user’s Internet Service Provider (ISP) maintains a record of the clickstream, and a large amount of it is also available to websites using simple JavaScript code, CGI scripts, and other means. Even if user opt-out of Performance & Analytics tracking and targeting, one might continue to see non-personalized advertisem*nts. As an example, users might visit a website containing Personal Computer feature comparisons. The collection of non-Personal Data relating to the services, that is, information that does not personally identify an individual (“Non-Personal Data”). The Non-Personal Data collect includes how user interact with the services, information generally collected or “logged” by Internet websites or Internet services when accessed or used by users, and information about web browser or device accessing or using the services. Cookies cannot discriminate between different users using the same machine unless they reenter the identifying input values that are stored in a cookie file. Especially if the cookie information has been synchronized with or purchased from another web server, the information associated with the user of a public computer can oftentimes be incorrect.

Much of the data collection occurs without user knowledge or consent. Most web users are unaware of the privacy policies set by the websites that they visit, so they are uniformed about how their personal information will be used. Because consumer data is extremely valuable to online marketers and advertisers, websites that collect this information often compile, analyze, and sell the data with little or no legal restrictions. This presentation delves into the privacy issues of clickstream capture technologies gathering information without user consent. The lack of privacy protection is a concern that most Americans share, whether in the online or offline domain. It is also clear that they are tired of companies building customer profiles and using it to market products to them. According to recent survey results: 90% of Americans say they are "concerned about general threats to their privacy". 80% of Americans feel they have "lost all control over how companies collect and use their personal information". 85% of online users strongly or somewhat disagreed that content providers have the right to resell user information. The issue that people consistently worry about most when going online is the protection of personal privacy. The collection of personal information using clickstream capture technology goes unannounced and unnoticed. Of the sites that allow third parties to place cookies on user computers, almost 80% of the random sampling of sites did not disclose that fact to consumers. This means that even if a user trusts a Web site which has a complete privacy policy, if that site allows third party cookies (most commonly advertisem*nt banners), there will still be invisible data collection going on. The choice to participate is of the form "opt-out", meaning that users are by default included in the consumer research, requiring an explicit request to opt-out. This format of data collection keeps it secret. Personal information is being collected everywhere on the Internet. Not only are sites explicitly gathering information for their own purposes, but there is also a tremendous amount of third party invisible data gathering going on as well. With the use of cookies, web servers are in a sense invading the client machine by storing files on it that contribute to a cause that most Americans disagree with. A GVU survey from 1997 showed that approximately one quarter of the online population did not know what a cookie was. The online users at that time consisted of the early adopters, presumably more tech-savvy people. Each company is responsible for ensuring the protection of privacy of its users. Each website contracts a third party such as TRUSTe to conduct independent audits, ensuring that the standards set forth by the privacy policy are upheld.

Conclusion:

The security of one’s information is important to every individual. Strive to implement and maintain reasonable, commercially acceptable security procedures and practices appropriate to the nature of the information to protect it from unauthorized access, destruction, use, modification, or disclosure. As website owners strive to protect the information to them, it is not guaranteed that the security of any information being transmitted is ultimately secured. This is also true for information being transmitted via email.

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