Inspired by a recent conversation on LinkedIn, I started putting together a list of how cookies are a problem, and why the EU is right to make it hard for companies to use them. Rather than being a minority, or at increased risk, as just a day to day user of the Internet what is the problem with you and cookies, why do you care who knows where you access?
I think the moral, ethical, and societal arguments are all valid… but it’s a lot to expect people to keep them in mind when you another box springs up, and the risk feels so abstract.
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Price discrimination. You could be offered flgiths and hotels and other goods at an increased price because the tracking systems know which economic class you’re in, and therefore what you can aford.
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Unnerved. Far more abstract, but when the Internet reacts to you, YouTube ads for that destination you were looking at earlier, the newspaper website is half-hidden by ads for that fridge you bought last week.
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Your daughter is pregnant… think on more.
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Your identity can be inferred by those who seeks targets. This can be as dramatic as your children being fed malvertising by predators or targeted promotions for online games by advertisers. Also after a breach this data will be sold or given away.
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Filter bubbles. The Internet can be great for crativity, a combination of serendipity and the unexpected, instead your end up in a filter bubble of content you’ve seen before that agrees with everything you’ve said.
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Unfair advantage. We’re mainly resistant to adverts, so you can be dismissive of them… but this tracking means that every advertiser knows what has or hasn’t worked against you before.
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Inferred religion, health, politics, or sexual orientation… but not known, so you might be discriminated against, targeted in many ways, or excluded from opportunities based on incorrect guesses.
The main point about so much of the above is that this is hidden, without intensive research or checking what the networks think you are ( and believing them ) this happens to you stealthily.