You see the pop-up all the time: Accept All, Reject All, or Customize Cookies. But which option should you actually choose?
Cybersecurity expert Robert Siciliano breaks down what website cookies really track, why some are necessary, what can happen when you reject them, and why customizing your settings could be the best middle ground.
We all do it, and we do it without a second thought.
In fact, polling shows 56% of Americans blindly click accept all
when it comes to cookies on websites.
Another survey finds that 66% of online shoppers do the same thing.
It sounds like a risky online proposition,
but something called cookies can't be harmful, right?
Well, we wanted to find out
and learn what else these cookies are made of.
Early in life, we learn that cookies are a good thing.
Be it chocolate chip, Oreo, peanut butter,
or any of the Girl Scout variety,
when offered cookies, we almost always accept.
Other than your waistline, these type of cookies won't hurt you.
But what about these types of cookies?
The ones you're asked to accept every time you sign on to a website.
Will they hurt your digital diet?
You can accept cookies. You're going to be fine.
Cybersecurity expert and best-selling author Robert Siciliano
says there is nothing to worry about when accepting these cookies.
I don't feel so good.
They won't leave a bad taste in your mouth.
I think it was that cookie.
It's not going to negatively impact your physical life
or your financial life.
It's not going to generally lead to any fraud.
Good to know these cookies won't crumble you,
but what are they exactly?
The industry came up with the term of the 90s
to avoid the usual tech jargon like
persistent client-side state tokens
or durable localized state artifacts or
SMM state management mechanism.
It's a comforting connotation easier to digest.
C is for cookie, that's good enough for me.
Cookies are designed to determine who this person is. Are they trusted?
And in some cases, who is this person and what do they want?
Think of the website like being
your favorite restaurant that you frequent.
You know, a place where everybody knows your name, for example.
Do you want an example?
Beer in our arm? Have I gotten that predictable? Good.
That's essentially what cookies do.
They're saying, okay, he or she is trusted.
Keep them going. Keep them logged in.
We're not going to log them out with every page they visit.
So we're going to track them in this process as a trusted user.
In Massachusetts, the state requires sites
to show their privacy policy.
How the data is collected, is it shared with third parties,
and allow users to opt out of some or all of it.
When you reject cookies,
there's a good chance that that website's not going to do
what it's intended to do, what you want it to do.
So accepting those cookies generally provides
the level of functionality that you expect.
That can happen when you hit reject all,
but it's not like you're going to want
to trash your computer. Bottom line,
just like in mom's kitchen, rarely will you come across a bad cookie.
I'm not too worried today about there being any financial
or malicious risk or loss.
So it's not like if you click cookies, two days later,
someone's clearing out your bank account.
That's definitely not going to happen.
Okay.
So Robert says it is a good idea to clean out the cookies
from your computer every couple of months or so
from sites you don't visit very often or visit anymore.
It protects your digital privacy, frees up space.
On most computers, you can do it by just doing Control-Shift-Delete.
That will open the data clearing menu,
and then you can get rid of what you no longer want
or what you no longer need.
