IS IT FINE TO ACCEPT COOKIES BLINDLY ?

It is a normal tendency for many of us to consent to many online pop ups. But we do not know what we are consenting to. For example, while you’re shopping in a store, the store’s manager requests consent to track and keep a record (i.e., cookie) of your activity throughout the time in that store for providing better service. Some customers tend to be curious about the manager’s intentions, their privacy if the record will be passed on to a third party or unwanted party, how will it benefit the customer, why should they accept the request, and such. Well, the cookies you come across online work the same way. They are not a program but merely a record of files. The curiosity to know the purpose of cookies is not seen in internet users, some don’t even know that they have an option to decline their requests. This article will give you more details on the cookie’s compliance with the law.

Things You Should Consider Before Accepting Cookie

It is wonderful if you could read the entire privacy policy. But it is almost impossible to do it for every website we go to. In that case:

- Check if there are any vendors. If so, reconsider accepting the cookie since your actions will be

tracked by every single one of the vendors. Quantcast, typically ask for permission shared with 542 different companies[1]. The expiration date for each vendor may vary.

- Make sure you check their list of purposes. Mostly it will all be ticked off unless you wish to consent to any particular purpose.

- Look out for legitimate interest as it would not necessarily be ticked off by default since they are necessary for the website. Processing data under “legitimate interests” requires that processing is necessary[2].

- You may come across strictly necessary cookies that are required for functionality, statistics, and marketing. Although, you should be able to decline all these requests if you wish not to consent.

After research conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University College London, and Aarhus University, it was found that in the United Kingdom more than half of the websites don’t have an option to decline all the requests, or the option is buried inside the pages. Only a few companies/websites have the option visible right at the front along with ‘accept all’. Pre-ticked boxes were made illegal according to the EU privacy laws. Yet not many companies are fined even though regulators can fine them up to 4% of their global turnover since the process is daunting.

This difficulty in imposing fine on companies, companies who aren’t transparent enough in their privacy policies, companies who make it complicated for a layman to easily understand what they are consenting to by having pages and pages of privacy policies and association with several other companies to share the data should be the changed which is what we must look forward in the future. Google is taking some steps for those accessing via google chrome to restrict advertising cookies, phasing out third-party cookies within the next two years in response to greater privacy control.

Should you worry about cookies?

Not necessarily. They aren’t as bad as they sound. It exists to make us comfortable in the online space. However, this happens compromising our privacy. We need not be worried about website cookies as much as third-party cookies. Website cookies collect information like how long we spend on the website, what are our interests, what are we targeting etc. to ultimately provide us what we are looking for. It makes online shopping extremely convenient. Cookies are for like a quid pro quo. It is for the benefit of consumers and companies. Companies get information about the kind of customers they receive, what are their needs, why they prefer them, and such data are used to market targeting specific customers. This is a huge benefit for companies to grow. If you’re starting a company or website and collect cookies, it is better to verify the cookies you collect are legitimate. Many websites provide free compliance check service to verify if your website is complying with the law. It is suggested to utilize these services to avoid any fines.

SWAMINI MURALI

[1] Cookies crumbling as Google phases them out, 2020 [2] (What is legitimate interest under the GDPR? | Cookie Information, 2020)