Just like your Mum’s secret recipe, website cookies are the unseen ingredients that give your digital experience that extra dash of personalisation.

With each click, a sprinkle of data is added to your virtual mixing bowl, making your internet experience unique. These tiny pieces of data act as digital breadcrumbs, tracking our virtual movements and providing a customised experience. Despite their sweet-sounding name, cookies come with both positive and negative implications for user privacy.

What is a cookie?
Out of the bakery and away from the puns, cookies are actually small text files stored on your device by websites that you visit. These files contain information about your browsing habits, preferences, and browsing session data.

While they can serve many purposes, cookies are primarily used to enhance user experience by enabling websites to remember your actions and preferences over time.

Would you like choc-chips with that?
Do you want a plain cookie, one with choc chips or maybe another outrageous favourite flavour? This is what cookies are all about, just like your favourite flavour enhances your eating experience, cookies on the internet enhance your user experience. By remembering things about you, cookies enable:

• Personalisation: Cookies enable websites to remember your preferences providing a tailored experience on your return visit.
• Authentication: Cookies play a crucial role in user authentication, keeping users logged in during a browsing session and allowing for seamless transitions between pages.
• Shopping Carts and Forms: Cookies are necessary for e-commerce sites, preserving the contents of your shopping cart and pre-filling forms, streamlining the online shopping process.
• Performance Optimisation: Cookies assist in website performance optimisation by caching content, reducing load times, and improving overall responsiveness.

What’s in the dark side of the jar?
A bit like in real life, cookies can do great things for us, but if we don’t manage our interactions with them carefully, we can end up with consequences we didn’t anticipate. In real life, it might be a little impact on your physical health, while in the virtual world, cookies can result in risks to your cyber health, particularly around privacy and security.

Cookies lurking on the dark side of the jar:

Tracking: Persistent cookies can be used to track your online activities across multiple websites, creating detailed profiles of your interests and behaviours
Targeted Advertising: Advertisers leverage tracking cookies to deliver personalised ads, but this can make you feel a sense of discomfort and intrusion, leaving you concerned about your personal data as a commodity. A good tip to remember is if the product is free, then you are most likely the product.
Security Risks: Malicious actors can exploit cookies for phishing attacks or session hijacking, compromising user accounts and sensitive information.

Grab a takeaway
Similar like in real life, cookies can be quite beneficial! They provide you a personalised, efficient online experience, but users must remain vigilant about privacy and security risks. By understanding how cookies function and being proactive about managing their use, you can have your cookie and eat it too.

Cookie Settings: Most browsers offer cookie management settings. Review and adjust these settings to control which cookies are accepted and stored on your device.
Use Private Browsing Modes: Activate private or incognito browsing modes to limit the information stored during your online sessions. This prevents the retention of browsing history, passwords, and other sensitive data.
Regularly Clear Cookies: Periodically clear your browser cookies to erase stored data, reducing the risk of long-term tracking and data accumulation.
Opt-Out of Tracking: Many websites provide options to opt out of tracking cookies. Look for privacy settings or cookie consent banners that allow you to customise your preferences.