BitDepth#1362

MARK LYNDERSAY

COOKIES ARE tiny text files that a website downloads to a browser that retains information about the session visit. Cookies can retain any or all of the following information about a web user.

The name of the website you clicked on. How often you accessed information on a website, and the time you spent there. Your account credentials, location, IP address, address and phone number (if entered). Items you put in a shopping cart.

When the internet was a simpler place, this was a convenience. It was nice to revisit a website and not have to log in. We smiled when an ad for an item we browsed recently showed up on another website entirely.

Then the internet got more dangerous and cookies got pincered between increased attention to the privacy of internet users and the decision by Apple and the Mozilla foundation to limit their reach.

There are three kinds of data that can be collected for business use.

First-party data is information that a company collects through its interactions with its customers or audience.

Second-party data is information that is gathered by a trusted partner. This information is normally not for sale and is usually shared for the mutual benefit of those involved.

Third-party data is information gathered from someone you don't know using methods of which you may be unaware. It is normally sold or licensed for advertising and marketing.

Since 2012, the EU has required websites to have user consent before saving cookies.

In 2017, Safari introduced its first version of an option to block cross-site tracking. In 2019, Firefox began blocking third-party cookies by default, followed by Safari in 2020.

Feeling the pressure of increased demand for user privacy, Google announced it would begin blocking third-party cookies in Chrome in 2020, but in the face of outcry from marketers and vendors, postponed termination to the end of 2023.

Chrome currently has 63 per cent of the browser market, so when it begins blocking the collection of third-party data, it will effectively end that method of information gathering.

But that won't end tracking. Google currently has trackers running on 76 per cent of all web traffic. There is an invisible Facebook tracking pixel on 18 per cent of websites.

As the dangers of cross-site tracking and insecure transmission of personally identifiable information (PII) became more apparent, legitimate worry arose about the vast pools of PII data that companies were gathering and selling to marketers.

Third-party-data gathering is a mass harvesting and aggregation process and in gathering this information, careless coding can create security problems.

First-party data is roughly equivalent to the contact information you have gathered in your personal address book. Second-party data is information you got from your good-good pardner's address book. Third-party data is information you got from a fella who knows a f