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Cookies: Cultivating the Online Consumer State
When a user visits a Web site, the site sends a small identifying piece of information, or ‘‘cookie,’’ to a personal computer within a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) header. When users stop to view certain Web sites and pages, therefore, they receive text, graphics, streaming media, and so forth on their screens, but they also receive a small packet of information that is stored in the browser’s memory and then stored on their own hard drives when the browser is closed (Whalen 2001). Privacy expert Roger A. Clarke (2001) offers a clear step-by-step explanation:
A Web browser requests a page from a Web server;
The Web server sends back to the Web browser not just the requested page but also an instruction to the browser to write a cookie (i.e., a record) into the client-computer’s storage;
Unless something prevents it, the Web-browser does so;
Each time a user requests a Web page, the Web browser checks whether a cookie exists that the Web server expects to be sent with the request . . . ;
If there is such a cookie, the browser transmits the record to the Web server, along with the request for the page;
When a Web server receives a request that has a cookie associated with it, the server is able to use the data in the cookie in order to ‘‘remember’’ something about the user.
The purpose of employing cookies, in the technical language of the Net, is to overcome a ‘‘stateless protocol’’ (Whalen 2001). Simply put, cookies provide a relatively stable platform for inter- actions between users (clients) and Web site owners (or servers). Cookies essentially provide servers (and their owners) a means of identifying repeat visitors to their Web sites, and in so doing they fundamentally challenge the ability of users to remain anonymous on the Net.[5] Thus, in addition to offering the possibility of online user surveillance, early cookie technology also provided ease of use and personalized information sources. Approximately eighteen months after the technology was first introduced in December 1994, cookies were being used for three main purposes—retaining information at e-tailing sites (such as items placed in online ‘‘shopping baskets’’), personalizing content on Web sites, and providing Web owners (or ‘‘masters’’) with information on how users are navigating their respective Web sites (Randall 1997).
Despite these seemingly obvious benefits to online consumers, Netscape and later Microsoft (Internet Explorer) neglected to make public the use of cookie technology in 1995 and early 1996.[6] In hindsight, such a declaration might have diffused some early criticism and ongoing distrust of cookie technology. The first published reports of cookie technology were certainly a public relations challenge for Netscape. Not surprisingly, the specter of an Orwellian World Wide Web was repeatedly raised by reporters and other critics of Netscape. One of the earliest newspaper articles on cookies, published in the Financial Times, for example, exclaimed that ‘‘Technology is already in place—and ready to be put to use on the World Wide Web of the Internet—that will allow Web site owners to gather an alarming range of information on the people who look at their Web pages from PCs at home’’ ( Jackson 1996, 15).Defenders of such technology argue that cookies transmit only a few pieces of information to Web page owners and e-tailers— namely, the user’s Internet Protocol (IP) address,[7] the type of Web browser, and the operating system of the personal computer (U.S. Department of Energy 1998). However, as the following discussion of cookie control preferences demonstrates, the relatively small amount of information transmitted by cookies was greatly enhanced when Web site operators linked that information with server data-collection and -diagnosis techniques (most prominently user profiling, collaborative filtering, and recommender systems). As cookies were used more widely by clients (users) and servers (largely e-tailers but also government),[8] Netscape began to release new versions of its popular browser that provided additional information and options for controlling the use of cookies. Netscape’s changes highlight the growing importance of Web ‘‘literacy’’ and also the effects of choosing Netscape’s own cookie- control preferences (namely, the disruption and disabling of Web convenience and relevance).[5]The problematic of anonymous online identities was a central question of many early studies of computer-mediated communication. [6]Some three years later (February 1999), Intel’s heavily promoted (online and oine) identification function for its Pentium III chip was heavily criticized by privacy advocates, spawning the relatively successful ‘‘Big Brother Inside’’ campaign (a spoof of the corporation’s ‘‘Intel Inside’’ logo). Intel’s Web site today (specifically, pages dedicated to the Pentium III chip) are now devoid of any information about the controversial ID chip and its accompanying ‘‘Web outfitter’’ service. [7]This address is unique and fixed if the user is on an internal Internet system (ethernet) or a digital subscriber line ( DSL) connection. Any Internet connection that uses a dial-up (telephone) connection has a random IP address assigned to the user for the duration of the connection. [8]According to the Associated Press (‘‘Agencies Record Web Users’ Habits’’ 2000), thirteen U.S. government agencies use cookies to track Internet visitors.
