Cookies and Privacy

My favorite topic in this week's readings was Chapter 1-2.8, Cookie. I found this section interesting because I have seen the term cookies used before, but I never knew what a cookie was or how they play a role in daily life. According to Baldauf, "Cookies enable a web server to identify visitors to websites". Prior to this chapter, I never even thought about how sites recognize my name automatically, and even create advertisements based off of previous purchases or preferences. As mentioned in the chapter, this is an absolutely remarkable tool for businesses and advertisers. However, I couldn't help but to wonder how cookies may be invasive to the privacy of users, especially because not many people know or understand how they work. One thing that I found extremely alarming  while reading the chapter is although "most companies track a user’s activities only within the company’s own website, some web advertisers use cookies to track a user across many websites" (Baldauf, 2013). Not only is the website that you're visiting storing your information, but it is possible that separate advertisers and webpages will as well. Though I feel that most people would not be comfortable with this, I think that it is their responsibility to educate themselves prior to using the internet. After reading the  sections in this week's module, I am definitely eager to learn more about how my privacy correlates with the internet, and will certainly be more cautious of which sites I trust!

Baldauf, Kenneth. "Digital Technology." Emerge With Computers V. 5.0 Cengage-hosted Printed Access Card. N/a: Cengage Learning, 2013. 1-2.2. Online Access Code.