Humans will leave footprints and fingerprints whenever we work, and we would not be surprised when anyone could determine where we had been. In the digital world, every single of us leave both electronic footprints and fingerprints in regards of data trails that we leave either intentionally or unconsciously. Such data, can be represented as cookies.
In her blog post, Kitty, talks about the effects of cookies in the business world. She said that utilizing cookies as a means to generate company’s revenue through targeting ads is unethical business behavior. I definitely agree with her, nevertheless, cookies are invented for a reason.
The invention of cookies allows us to give access to others to our personal information that would save us time on daily activities. Cookies used to store usernames, addresses and even payment information on websites allow us to check out much faster, however, it forces us to give up a certain level of privacy. Companies and advertisers want access to it to make money, and we often give it to them to save money of our own. To make this possible, some companies are offering discounts if you are to provide your name and email address in which the company will use the information regarding your shopping history to provide a more personalized experience for you. In other words, they are simply paying us to help them improve their business strategy.
Undoubtedly, an online based company is more profitable than that of offline. AdSense, one of Google’s projects, generated 91% of Google’s total revenue in 2013 while using cookies to track their users and serve advertisements that was applicable to the customers (Chapter 2: Careful, Your Data is Showing, 2015). The question is that why would a company like Google both take profit from their customers information and be so active against government exploiting user privacy through PRISM ? It seems that companies only care about privacy and security when it is only to their benefit to do so.
I personally think that it is ethical for the company to use our information to provide a personalized approach that will benefit both the customers and the companies. However, companies need to state clearly if they are using our personal information to sell to third parties to target ads, and they should provide an option for the customer to opt out.
Overall, cookies are going to make web browsing much more pleasurable experience by saving the user preferences and it also provides a platform for marketers to target adverts of the things customer will most likely buy. Consumers should not worry too much about anything over a network security risks from cookie poisoning and privacy concerns, for they can use an incognito browser, cookie-free browser, or simply by switching it off.
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Chapter 2: Careful, Your Data is Showing! (2015). Retrieved from http://newbitsbook.com/index.php?title=Chapter_2:_Careful,_Your_Data_is_Showing!
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