Internet security is a concept that is ever-growing in importance in this day and age, especially seeing the current peoples’ increasing reliance on technology. Evidently, despite what good access to the internet can bring, it’s imperative to consider the potential threats this usage can have to one’s online safety.

One of the biggest and most well-known forms of harm is the use of cookies. You’ve probably seen and clicked ‘yes’ on websites asking you to allow them. The Federal Trade Commission defines cookies as “information saved by your web browser.” However, this definition overlooks the fact that cookies can be very damaging and can deface a user’s level of privacy and self-security on the internet when misused. Cookies can lead to many exploitative consequences, including harmful malware such as viruses that can be sent through cookies, the commercialization of personal data, or even instances of identity theft. This all puts a user’s data privacy at risk if they are not fully informed on what decision they are making when choosing to accept cookies.

It’s also important to realize that cookies often collect internet data without the user’s consent, usually for monetary purposes such as ad personalization. It’s common that one ‘accepts all cookies’ for convenience when browsing a website, but does clicking a button show all the functions of a cookie and what that could mean?

A 2010 publication by Cookie Central, a website dedicated to informing users of such data devices, states that even though cookies are readily ‘accepted,’ the formatting of the information often tells the user minimal about what is actually being stored. This can lead to the accidental exploitation of one’s data, proven in an InfoWorld Radosevich study that examined a bug within the popular internet browser Netscape. This browser allowed a website to access crucial confidential information passed between that site and the cookie file, including credit card numbers and passwords. Luckily, the bug was fixed before any serious harm was done, but this example shows what could happen to one’s data had it ever gotten into the wrong hands– and the scariest thing is, once the information is out there, there is no getting it back.

In a software update, Apple has allowed their users to turn off data tracking for advertisements, in which 62% of Apple users in the new update opted out of having their searches logged across their devices for commercial purposes. People don’t want their data collected when they know it is happening and will take action against it. This can’t be said about accepting cookies, which usually don’t state all of their purposes when they ask you to allow them, creating a situation where users do not fully know what cookies can do to their browser. The internet has always been a hub for information and convenience; it is only right that the people using the web should know what is going on inside it.