Got cookies?
Spend any time surfing the Web, and it's easy to collect a bunch of them - the digital kind, that is. You might have hundreds of these tiny files sitting on your computer.
Go to Google, you get a cookie. The same goes for Yahoo.com, CNN.com and northjersey.com, the Web site of The Record.
But growing numbers of people are purging cookies from their computers or blocking new ones from getting planted. In the process, they are jeopardizing the basic economics of the Internet.
How can something so small and so ubiquitous - and with such a cute name - get such a bad reputation?
Cookies are identification tags. They allow a Web site to distinguish one visitor from another. Cookies will reveal if you've been to the site before, what other sites you have visited, and what information and products you have sought - without necessarily knowing your name or other personal information.
You might prefer to keep this information to yourself. But keep this in mind: Most information on the Web is underwritten by advertising. And advertisers - along with their clients - desperately want to know about your online behavior.
So don't be surprised if sites start forcing you to accept cookies before checking stock prices, sports scores and the latest headlines, according to Young-Bean Song, director of analytics for Atlas, a major cookie-maker. It will be a trade-off, he says, akin to supermarket loyalty cards: In return for some kind of benefit, the company gets to learn more about you.
That trade-off has actually been going on for a decade. But something happened in the past year that is forcing it into the open: the proliferation of malicious programs called spyware.
People get infected with spyware because someone using the computer downloaded free music or visited an unscrupulous Web site. The programs track a user's movements on the Internet, sometimes extracting personal information. They also can slow down a computer's performance.
Consumers are striking back with special anti-spyware programs. And many of these products also target cookies.
"Now you can be a little more safe that your sexual preferences, your buying habits, your political stuff isn't being tracked by somebody who can ultimately use that information to foist stuff on you," says Richard Stiennon, the vice president for threat research at Webroot, an anti-spyware company.
Cookie-makers, not surprisingly, say their little files - which don't cause any harm to people's computers - are being unfairly stigmatized.
"There's a smoke of fear being perpetuated by the anti-spyware companies," Song says. "And at the end of the day, that's not going to be good for the Internet."
Cookie deletion gained attention this spring when JupiterResearch, a technology consulting firm, issued a report questioning the reliability of cookies for measuring the number of return visitors to Web sites. In a survey of 2,300 Internet users, 39 percent said they delete their cookies at least once a month, and 25 percent said they block cookies from being placed on their computers.
Eric Peterson, the Jupiter analyst who wrote the report, illustrates the problems facing cookies. He is a tech-savvy guy who considers cookies "pretty harmless." He says his credit card company knows far more about his spending habits, and his Internet provider knows far more about his online habits, than anyone will learn about him from cookies. And yet he regularly deletes some cookies from his computer.
"Am I afraid? Am I paranoid? No," he said. "Do I think I'm improving the performance of my computer? No. I don't really have a good reason for doing it. But I do it. ... And I think this is a fairly common consumer behavior."
Anthony Gesimondo is one of those cookie-busters. A Pompton Lakes resident who builds computers as a side job, he became aware of cookies from reading computer magazines. And he is convinced cookies allow companies to sell information about you to other companies, eventually leading to pop-up ads.
"You don't really know what kind of information is being left on your computer from anywhere," he said.
Some consumers - for now, a much-outnumbered minority - appreciate cookies, because it means that online ads will be tailored to their interests.
"Personally, I embrace it," said Tom Mokrzecki of Lyndhurst, who stopped deleting cookies five years ago. "I want to be targeted. I want all the advertisers to serve me only the most relevant ads. I want them to have the most current statistics on me."
But as more people learn about cookies, usually by running anti-spyware programs, they err on the side of deleting them. It doesn't help cookies' cause that most Web sites don't adequately explain what they are. Most sites don't even make clear that they're using them.
"Nobody is being asked," said Peterson, the Jupiter analyst.
Well, some sites do extend the courtesy. Amazingpregnancy.com, a Web site that includes articles and merchandise for expectant mothers, gives users two choices: "Use cookies" and "Do not use cookies." The site also includes a prominent link that explains what its cookie does.
"We didn't want to lose potential visitors who thought we were doing something underhanded," said the Web site's owner, Vickie Barnes, a former Elmwood Park resident now living in North Carolina. "If we're putting something on their system, we want them to know about it."
Then there's the opposite approach: sneakiness.
Using another tasty-sounding technology called PIE (for Persistent Identification Element), advertisers can make cookies resistant to deletion. If you delete it, PIE just recreates it.
PIE's owner, Mookie Tenenbaum, says it's a reasonable response to the anti-spyware programs that "demonize" cookies. Most people, he says, delete cookies through these programs, without really knowing what cookies are. If they did know, he says, they probably wouldn't mind having them.
But Peterson, the Jupiter analyst, thinks PIE will make things worse for online retailers by flouting the wish of some Internet users to remain completely anonymous. Instead, he advises Web sites to be more forthright.
"Don't try to sneak around consumer preferences," he said. "That's how we got where we are today - by being sneaky and not telling people we're setting cookies."
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What are cookies?
Cookies are small text files placed on your computer by Web sites you visit. They allow a Web site to distinguish you from other visitors - not by name, but by a unique combination of letters and numbers.
Can cookies reveal my personal information?
Cookies contain only information that you provided. Some cookies, called first-party cookies, are read only by the Web site that put them there. Others, known as third-party cookies, can be read by several other Web sites, allowing advertisers and merchants to build a profile of your online activities (but not your name, e-mail address or other personally identifiable information).
Also, anyone looking at the cookies on your computer - such as another member of your household - will know what sites you've visited.
Cookies won't allow people to steal sensitive information from your computer. Other malicious programs are capable of doing that, but not cookies.
Do cookies slow down my computer?
Not likely. They're too small.
Does the user get any benefit from having cookies?
First-party cookies save you the step of logging in to a Web site. First-party and third-party cookies also enable Web sites to customize the offers and ads they show, based on your previous online activity.
Can I delete my cookies?
Yes. In Windows XP, click on "My Computer," go to your "C:" drive and find "Documents and Settings." Open the file with your user name, and find the "Cookies" folder. Open it, highlight the cookies you don't want and delete them. Be warned, however, that if you delete all of your cookies, you might have to manually log in to some sites that previously didn't require it.
Also, anti-spyware programs often search for third-party tracking cookies on your computer and give you the option of deleting them. Some anti-spyware programs are available for free downloading; others are available by subscription.
Can I block future cookies?
Yes, but they are so pervasive that your Web surfing will frequently be interrupted or even limited. In Internet Explorer, go to the Tools drop-down bar, choose Internet Options, then click on the Security tab. Choose the kind of blocking you want.
- Brian Kladko
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