Online Cookies
In our tutorial the class started talking about cookies… My first thoughts went straight to a freshly baked choc chip cookie melting in my mouth, unfortunetly this is not the cookie they were talking about.
Online cookies were infact what they were talking about. The words, pop ups, advertisments, annoying, why and what are they kept getting brought up.
After further discussion I came to realise these cookies were infact ‘text files’ that come up on your computer after you visit different sites. They contain two pieces of information: a site name and unique user ID. I realised then that I had seen them before just had never known what they were called. (learn something new everyday)
Cookies can be good an bad things with classmates discussing exmaples of each. They can be usefull as the make interaction with frequently visited sites smoother, especially helps online shopping. The negative; your information can be stored to marketing lists without you knowing and you can become targetted by special offers frequently.
One class mate even spoke of his experience with purchasing flights to Vietnam online; the prices were going up and up everytime he re visited the site so was pressured to book before they got too expensive. With the advice of his friend he deleted all cookies and went back to the exact same site and the prices were $100 cheaper. How freaky that the price you pay can depend on how many times you visit a site…
Advice I have taken; DELETE cookies when booking flights!!!