Have you ever heard ofcookies? These small files are an important part of how the internet works. Basically, they can store information about users when they access a particular page for the first time.
With the LGPD (General Data Protection Law), which has been in force since August 2020, all websites are obliged to inform you about the use of cookies. With this in mind, check out more details on how the feature works.
What are cookies for?
As mentioned before, these are files that identify a user by collecting data. With this information, cookies can personalize the browsing experience if the user visits the same page again in the future.
Let’s take a practical example: some news sites may highlight the links you’ve already visited in different colors, and this also applies to social networks, which also use cookies to adjust the user experience according to each user.
Another example is shopping carts. Depending on the platform, a store can use cookies to keep items saved for a certain period. Making life easier for the customer if they want to close an order a few days later, for example.
In e-commerce, adding a product to the cart, changing items and units are all done using cookies. Banks, email clients, digital services, games and news portals also use them to offer a differentiated experience to the visitor.
Are these files completely safe?
The bad news is that although cookies are very useful, they can also be used by cybercriminals to steal personal data. The sites themselves can also misuse these files for commercial purposes, profiling a customer’s consumption without their consent, for example.
Among the information that can be removed from cookies are: your location, IP address, e-mail address, social media profiles and even your last visits to your bank’s website.
In general, what scammers do is combine these “crumbs” of files with your browsing habits, e-mail address and information from completed forms to create traps.
By clicking on something suspicious, a victim can then be redirected to other sites that can install malicious programs, trojans and malware on a smartphone or computer.
It should also be noted that these files are divided into two subcategories: first-party cookies and third-party cookies. First-party cookies are created by the website being accessed. That’s why there’s a good chance they’re totally secure (which still doesn’t prevent them from being accessed in the event of an intrusion or hacker attack, for example)
Third-party cookies, on the other hand, usually come from pages with different domains to the one being visited. A website with several ad windows, for example, can generate several cookies, even if the user doesn’t click on anything.
After all, is it a good idea to allow the use of cookies?
Finally, even if they are used on a large scale and make the user’s life easier when browsing the same pages, it is up to the user to decide whether or not to limit the use of the resource.
As we have seen so far, by allowing cookies to work in your favor, websites can process the information collected to improve your experience.
If they are not in use, no information will be saved each time you visit a particular page, i.e. it will be as if you had never visited the site.
How to disable the use of cookies
The way to block or change the use of cookies changes slightly depending on the browser. In Google Chrome, simply click on the three vertical dots on the top right-hand side > ‘Security and privacy’ > ‘Cookies and other site data’.
In the menu below, you can experiment with different settings, such as clearing cookie data whenever you close all windows and even blocking all cookies.
Via Olhar Digital
