All e-mail providers place a small check box on their home page beneath the login and password fields. Next to the check box is the prompt “Remember me” or “Remember me on this computer”.
Users who want their computer to remember their login name and password click on the check box after entering their login name and password. The next time they want to access their e-mail they don’t have to enter this information. The computer does so.
E-mail providers are not the only Internet companies that provide this “facility”. You will find similar prompts on all websites that regulate user access through passwords. Have you ever wondered how this is done? Or its implications?
When you click on the check box you unknowingly give permission to the website to slip a small text file called cookie in your computer. This cookie now works like a “friendly spy”. Every time you visit the website, the cookie sends out a message to its master.
The master, that is the website, matches the tracking code placed in the cookie with its records. The moment the match is validated the website enters your login name and password in the respective fields. All that you have to do now is to click on the Submit button to access the website.
You are relieved that you don’t have to recall the login name and address every time you visit that website. It happens automatically. But what you don’t know is that the website can now track your behaviour. It records the time at which you logged in, the time that you spent on the website, the pages that you visited, the advertisements that you clicked, the last page that you viewed before leaving, etc.
This information is then matched with personal information like your age, profession, marital status, income etc that you had happily provided at registration time. A report is then prepared of user behaviour based on age, income, place of residence etc. and provided to potential advertisers. The advertisers study user behaviour and decide whether they need to place ads on the website, and if they do then when and where to do so.
This is not the only example of how cookies are used to track user behaviour. Hundreds of websites transfer cookies into your computer even though you are not a registered user because even this limited information is valuable for the advertiser.
Some advertisers place cookies on the ads that they serve, and use their own or third party servers to do the tracking. Once again you are not aware that your actions are not only being watched, but logged, analysed and marketed.
So, how do you save yourself from such intrusion into your privacy? The first is provide as few personal details as possible while registering. The second is delete cookies regularly. You will find the cookies that have been infiltrated into your computer stored in the Documents and Settings Folder.
To reach them, go to Start and right click to open the Command menu. Click on Explore, and then on Documents and Settings folder. The Cookies folder will become visible. Open this folder, and delete all the cookies. The sites will become blind, and will no longer be able to monitor your activity in that session. But you can be sure that they will slip another cookie to monitor your next visit. So, you should regularly clean your Cookies folder.
Another option is to change the settings on Internet Explorer. You can do so by visiting the Tools sections and activating the Cookie radio button. After this, your browser will inform you ever time a website tries to slip a cookie in your system.
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