HINTERG wrote:Oh dear. And all the time I thought cookies made my computing time just easier. I am not entirely convinced by the financial argument made here though. After all, we kind of expect all this information on the web to be free, but truth is, it has to be paid for somehow. Seems like its time for LF to do an article (another?) on spam filters
Spam and cookies aren't quite in the same category. Spam is totally unsolicited garbage. While cookies are used to gather information, sure, some may later be used to target you with spam, but that's a separate issue.
If LXF want's info about where I am or what i know, to know who to contact if they comments relevant to my location of knowledge, that's OK. But when someone like Adsense or Doubleclick want it to pick the right ads to target me with, or to sell to someone else to target me with the right ads, that's a different kettle of fish, and I want to be paid before they get it.
That makes me wonder if we should have a separate discussion on the proper use of cookies. Maybe a LXF article on the proper use of cookies.
Look, I know you need some cookies to make a forum or e-commerce site work properly. But why does a site like the local newspaper, who doesn't need confirmed feedback from me, need a lot of cookies as well? Why do sites who only make static pages for information available to visitors need with cookies?
The answer to the above questions is - they don't, but they use the cookies to gather information on the visitors so they can use or sell it. This shouldn't be allowed. The other main use is to use it to target ads on the site to the visitor - which is more objectionable.