Are Cookies Bad For Me?

First of all, let me be clear. I am not referring to baked cookies (personally, I’d argue that they are very good for me despite what my mother tells me) but what I’m talking about are Computer Cookies. Those annoying banners at the bottom of sites that usually say accept and close and even though you don’t want to you will likely click accept just to get rid of it.

Even I’ve been a culprit when it comes to accepting cookies, forgive me, I’m only human. If you asked me a couple months ago what a cookie actually was, I honestly wouldn’t be able to tell you. Cookies essentially monitor your searches, what you click on and what you don’t. This is done by a small text file, there’s nothing malicious or lethal, it’s just a text document that includes the sites address and your unique ID that gets stored on your computer. The cookies then change your adverts, so they are more tailored to what they think you’ll be interested in. Have you ever looked at something on the internet and then suddenly you have a hundred adverts for that same thing on other sites? Cookies allow this to happen.

There are typically two views towards cookies. On one hand you have the people that dislike being spied on, having big company’s and corporations see what you’re looking at and watch what you’re doing. And then you have the other side that don’t really care, adverts are adverts. They’d rather not have adverts at all, but if they must have them, they may as well be about what they like.

Figuring out if cookies are good for you is pretty much up for you to decide, whether you see it as spying on you or tailoring your experience is up to you, but to conclude people simply need to be aware of what they actually are and make their mind up for themselves.