Cookies

Cookies are small, byte-sized data files found in the browser cache of most information and communication technologies (ICTs), such as smartphones, tablets, computers, and wearable technologies. Although cookies were initially designed in the 1990s to minimize the loading time of websites, they have since become increasingly repurposed as tools for Internet marketing and advertising. There are numerous kinds of cookies, utilized to serve a variety of different purposes for social media–based data mining and web analytics efforts. Cookies essentially record a variety of information about how an individual browses the Internet. With the average ICT device carrying upward of thousands of different cookies at any time, coupled with the number of ICT devices exceeding 1.5 billion worldwide, cookies raise numerous privacy concerns—concerns driven by not ...