Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar? It wasn't Elmo.

Imagine that you’re innocently surfing the web for some organic dog treats for Fido and suddenly you’ve noticed that the ads on the websites you frequent start to mention dogs in every shape, size and breed. Organic food stores start blinking at you, sparkling dog collars light up your screen, and vintage clothes with floral patterns and torn edges flash by with power point precision. This my friends, is proof that your information has just been... SOLD !

Yep. That’s how “they” do it. When you use certain search engines [Google was not mentioned] large marketing companies, such as BlueKai and eXelate Media, harvest your cookies [information] and sell it [their yield] like the organic farmers you so adoringly admire.

This is how you get those catalogs from Macys and Bloomingdales. But sometimes they glitch up and send you a product that doesn’t "fit" you. Let’s take, for example, that you receive The Limited Too catalogue and you’re a single thirty-four year old man. Before the advent of the web, companies like Acxiom and Experian would only be able to broker your income level, age, interests, and sex. But, now with the great world wide web they can [and do] search deeper, and get more personal information. The ironic thing is, most of the time, people willingly offer up these pearls of great insight for the machine to grind into a fine powder. Which is then, metaphorically [of course], sold by the ounce to companies who, in turn, try to take your money from you.

“Oh no!” you cry. “My information! Will anyone know about my love of playing games on little girl websites and try to advertise to me?!” Well, that’s why you got The Limited Too catalog at your house… “How do they get such information on me then?”
Now, this is where all those required computer classes in college come in handy [hopefully you were awake long enough to retain some information]. These companies (BlueKai and eXelate) infiltrate your computer through your “cookies” which are automatically stored on your computer. “Cookies? What the heck are those?! You mean those tasty little treats I adore to eat with milk?”

Erm. Not so much.

Well, you see, cookies are these teeny tiny files on your computer, and they’re text based. A computer user will normally not notice cookies on their computer, unless they go cooking hunting. “Oohh exciting. Do I get a butterfly net?”

No.

So, cookies are not as evil as many people believe, and not as sinless as we think they are either. As I stated before, they are teeny tiny web files on your computer that sit pretty waiting for something to happen to them. Basically, these cookies are for the website owner or moderator to use. It stores how many users visit a day, and sometimes a little more information such as passwords or usernames. So when you sign onto your facepages and mybooks and you click the “remember me!” box, a cookie is stored and made with your password and username, meaning anybody who turns on your computer can sign in without your discretion.

But this would be level one infiltration of privacy in my opinion. The aforementioned companies “go” into your computer log, clone your cookies, and leave the imposters and hoard the real ones for a ransom of hundreds of dollars. Companies do anything to get a little hint on how to appeal to their demographic.

The worst part? You can control cookies, but most internet users don’t know how. It’s quite time consuming, since web browsers [such as Firefox] have the option to block websites from making cookies, but you have to manually enter in the website yourself, and many, many, many people don’t ever touch the buttons above the web bar.
“I know I don’t!”

I know you don’t either.

So things get a little crazy when you can actually GO onto the websites and they give you the option to OPT out of their service, which technically makes stealing your cookies from your cookie jar completely legal, especially since they aren’t giving out real names and contact information.

So to freak you out, I’m just going to use the example from the article in the NyTimes online.

Start off by going to the BlueKai website and see if they might already have information on you. Now go to Kayak and search for something.

Finally, go back to the BlueKai link I’ve provided and you’ll see information about the flight you’ve chosen.

Scary right?

You may commence the panicking.


Questions to Consider:
1) Would you be okay with websites taking your cookies in order to give you a more targeted experience?

2) Does this at all freak you out in any way?