Cookies are a key component of Web technology, but everyone should be careful using new EU rules on consent

Feeling bored and apathetic? Well, try this. In Firefox, open the "Preferences", click the "Privacy" tab and click on the "delete cookies individually." Then opens a dialog box called "cookies", which states that "these cookies are stored on your computer." If you're a heavy user of the site, which will be a long drop. On my laptop, for example, Amazon has 29 biscuits, YouTube and Google a huge nine 53. (For instructions on how to inspect the cookies in other browsers, visit NetLingo.)

Cookies are small text files, usually letters and numbers downloaded on a computer when the user accesses a website. The first thing to say about them is that they make bedtime reading. For example, one of my cookies Amazon begins with the phrase "%% 3D1% 7C131818459 20s_dl" and goes on like this for four and a half lines. Amazon's web server, however, this nonsense is a fascinating question because it provides useful information on the use of the site. May reveal the details of my browsing history. O provides information on what I bought recently. The point is that I can not say how the cookie crumbles, it's something that only knows the Amazon

The idea that the files secret sites deposit on your computer - without your consent - will strike some people as creepy, and even a way it is. But it has some advantages. For example, it makes the Web more useful by allowing sites to bypass many procedural delay. Thus, a cookie is what allows a website to recognize return visitors so they do not connect every time they appear. And in some cases, cookies are needed - such as online sites for retailers, consumers accumulate points in a basket on his way to a virtual box

goes without saying that this intrusion of the EU bureaucracy in the old British law to do what they please comment generated a lot of heat. The jackbooted thugs in Brussels, we were told, was to "kill the internet." But the law is the law and, alarmed by the lack of preparedness of British Industry, the government negotiated a year of "initial "to give businesses time to adjust to the new reality.

We are now half of that period, and the Information Commissioner - the kind who will apply the new rules - has just published a mid-term report on how things go by. Their verdict, he writes, "can be summarized in the professor's favorite cliches:" Could do better "and" could do better "a report that lists the URLs of sites that were perfectly consistent from day one would be very short .. It is no surprise to anyone who recognizes that the redevelopment and redesign is not easy. "

is an understatement. A random sampling of some Web sites identified by this columnist suggests that their owners did not appreciate what the new rules require. Most of them bury information about cookies on a link entitled "Privacy Policy" in small print at the bottom of their home pages. The link explains that the Company files cookies before going to say that if the decline of these cookies from the user, the company "can not guarantee that your experience with the site will be as fast or as sensitive as if you receive a cookie. "If that's what British companies thinking about informed consent from users when they have a nasty surprise coming. And the Information Commissioner will be held from June this year.

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