We see them every time we open a webpage. We mindlessly click "Accept All Cookies" without knowing what they are, what they do, and how they work. So what exactly do we agree to when we accept all cookies?
Cookies in the digital world are tiny little packages of memory that a website uses for various reasons. Usually, they're to determine whether you logged in or not, or to scrape some information about how you are using the website. Cookies in themselves are harmless, but with the rise of cyber-privacy, many people are becoming uncomfortable with the idea that a website is getting information about them.
There are three types of cookies that websites use: local storage, session cookies, and third-party cookies. Local storage is not used often as it is almost like a use once then discard type of storage. Some developers might use it to keep track of information that is not essential at all. The downside of these cookies is that when the user reloads the website, the information in the local storage is deleted. Session cookies are the most common type of cookies because they last for the whole session of the user. Session cookies allow users to stay logged in to a website even after the tab has been closed. It also allows the sharing of information across the different pages of the website. Finally, third-party cookies are cookies created by a third-party organization. Some of these cookies provide extra analytical features, such as Google Analytics, which allows developers to track how many people use their website, for how long, and how they utilize the website.
When a website uses any sort of cookies, they are required by law to have a cookie policy explaining what the purpose of each cookie is, and also provide a cookie popup to ask for consent for the usage of cookies. Many people assume that if you deny cookies, no information is being tracked, but that is false Websites can name certain cookies as "essential cookies," which cannot be blocked for the sake of the website. The only cookies that would be blocked would be those that aren't essential, such as Google Analytics. So if you are worried about the information that is being tracked, it would not be a bad idea to read the cookie policy as they mention which cookies are essential and which ones aren't.
In the case of the Build-A-Bot website that will be published soon, we use session cookies to manage the login information of the user, as well as keep track of whether the user allowed cookies or not. We use Google Analytics for the sake of our research, but in reality, it still isn't a necessary cookie that we need for the usage of the website. These past 2 weeks, I've been working on writing out the cookie policy for the website, as well as the cookie popup. The hardest part was learning all of the laws in regards to cookies, as well as the implementation of the cookie popup in Angular JS, a Javascript structural framework for building dynamic webpages.
All in all, cookies are a lot more complicated than I first thought they were when I decided to implement the cookie policy and popup for the Build-A-Bot project. I think we deserve a cookie for going through all of this complexity.
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