Tracking cookie what is it

Fortunately, even a basic understanding of cookies can help you keep unwanted eyes off your internet activity. While most cookies are perfectly safe, some can be used to track you without your consent. Worse, legitimate cookies can sometimes be spied upon if a criminal gets access. In this article, we will guide you through how cookies work and how you can stay safe online. Cookies are text files with small pieces of data — like a username and password — that are used to identify your computer as you use a computer network.

Specific cookies known as HTTP cookies are used to identify specific users and improve your web browsing experience. Data stored in a cookie is created by the server upon your connection. This data is labeled with an ID unique to you and your computer. When the cookie is exchanged between your computer and the network server, the server reads the ID and knows what information to specifically serve to you. Cookies generally function the same but have been applied to different use cases:.

Commonly, this would be used for a login to computer database systems, such as a business internal network. He recreated this concept for browsers when he helped an online shopping store fix their overloaded servers. The HTTP cookie is what we currently use to manage our online experiences.

It is also what some malicious people can use to spy on your online activity and steal your personal info. Cookies are created to identify you when you visit a new website. These tell cookies where to be sent and what data to recall. The server only sends the cookie when it wants the web browser to save it. If a user returns to that site in the future, the web browser returns that data to the web server in the form of a cookie.

This is when your browser will send it back to the server to recall data from your previous sessions. To put it simply, cookies are a bit like getting a ticket for a coat check:.

Websites use HTTP cookies to streamline your web experiences. Making cookies an important a part of the internet experience. While this is mostly for your benefit, web developers get a lot out of this set-up as well. In turn, websites can personalize while saving money on server maintenance and storage costs.

With a few variations, cookies in the cyber world come in two types: session and persistent. Session cookies are used only while navigating a website. They are stored in random access memory and are never written to the hard drive. Third-party trackers or cookies can then be accessed by the third party that creates them and since they share information across websites, they are also known as cross-site cookies.

Third-party tracking cookies are then used extensively for online advertising and retargeting. Advertisers use this information to serve you custom ads across the web and in your social media feeds. It depends.

You could be searching for running shoes and you may come across a shoe ad that is in tune with what you are searching for.

Good deal, right? When used for legitimate marketing and advertising purposes, tracking cookies can give us personalized ads and suggestions that can be useful. Over time, tracking cookies can collect a lot of personal information and behavioural data — they can learn about your location, device information, purchase history, search queries, and much more.

Since advertisers can easily gather basic data without users even consenting to it, tracking cookies have a bad rap. Users have raised privacy concerns and object to being tracked by third-party software of any kind. If you are a web publisher or website owner, you should be aware of all the cookies set by your website, especially third-party cookies. You can use a free cookie scanner and get an audit report of the cookie categories, all the cookies set by your website, their purpose, domain and duration.

As the information collected via cookies have raised privacy concerns over the years, some laws regulate their usage.

The GDPR requires user permission to collect their personal information, including data collected from online identifiers like cookies. Under Article 4 11 of GDPR, consent of the user means any freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication given by a clear affirmative action.

The ePrivacy Directive or EU cookie law which predates the GPPR also requires websites to obtain user consent for cookies except used to facilitate communication over a network and strictly necessary cookies. CCPA does not directly regulate the use of cookies. This means that cookies used behavioural advertising may constitute a sale that comes under the purview of CCPA.

To avoid any risk, websites that use third-party cookies for advertising should:. Websites should display a cookie popup or banner that allow users to opt-in or consent to the use of cookies.

In closing, the way you handle cookies is a matter of your own preference and discretion. Otherwise, the steps above can help in making sure that your privacy is respected. Either way, your PC is safe! Craig is a long-time writer, coder, and marketer with years of experience in the technology and gaming spaces. Since , he's worked remotely with some of the most notable publications in these industries, specializing in Windows, PC hardware and software, automation, and the like.

Read Craig's Full Bio. We hate spam too, unsubscribe at any time. How they're used and how to get rid of them. Table of Contents. Techopedia Explains Tracking Cookie. What Does Tracking Cookie Mean? Techopedia Explains Tracking Cookie Some experts refer to tracking cookies as third-party cookies, because the party benefiting from the information is not the party that created the specific site visited. Various browsers allow users to delete or otherwise handle tracking cookies.

This helps individual users protect themselves against the invasions of privacy that third-party tracking cookies can represent. Within the general controversy around data collection on the Internet, many of those who use tracking cookies argue that the information collected is more demographic than personal and that it is used to help businesses make effective decisions about advertising and outreach. As a result, tracking cookies are likely to continue to be a controversial part of new online business models.