More on cookies -Reply

[Dan Lester]

>>> Thomas Dowling <tdowling at ohiolink.edu> 09/03/96
08:28am >>>
Last week, I posted a note observing that a number of library
pages recently were trying to give me cookies, and asking
why people were doing this?
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I have no idea why they're doing it, but personally, I'm not
bothered.  Why?  See below.
===========================
 Nonetheless, many users feel that a device which at
minimum tracks when you last visited a site, and possibly
what you viewed, represents an intrusion into the usually
anonymous nature of surfing the web.
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Nothing is anonymous, at least as far as identifying the
workstation that contacted a server.  Every connection is
logged on the server end, and if any owner of a porno or other
site wants to do something with that data, there is nothing
that you or I can do about it.  Of course when some cops get
a warrant on http://www.nastyashell.com/ and find that
cyclops.idbsu.edu downloaded reallynastypicture.jpg, I'll have
to convince them that someone broke into my office and did
it, and that I was really getting my haircut at that date and
time, etc, etc.  o-)  (Fortunately I've gone to the same stylist
for five years and I tip her VERY well, so she'll probably fake
her calendar book logs for me.....  o-)    )
================================
That said, I still don't know what sites are using cookies for. 
One post mentioned that the Apache server *can* be set to
issue a cookie on your first hit, in order to track how long you
stay at the site.  I don't find this a very compelling reason and
don't believe it represents all the sites I've seen using
cookies.
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And, this has the same flaw as any other measurement, in
that no one knows what it REALLY means, any more than
we know what it means to count number of people coming in
the door, number of books checked out, etc.  I could zip thru
a bunch of pages on a site and look at them later, really
spending much more time perusing their content than they
think.  Why do we think they invented programs that will do
this for us for that very reason?
======================
Both Netscape 3.0 and MSIE 3.0 have options to notify you
when you're being offered a cookie (Netscape also tells you
what the contents of the cookie are).  Turning that option on
has proven very informative to me; I had no idea cookies were
as widespread as they are.
----------------------------------------------
I've done same thing, and recommend it at least as a learning
experience to librarians I train around the state and region. 
Some of them are very concerned about flushing the disk
cache after each patron, and others don't worry about it. 
Some are worried about the server logs being used for
nefarious purposes, others figure that the chances of anyone
doing anything nasty with that data is so remote that they
don't worry.  Of course most of these nice librarians probably
aren't going to www.nastyashell.com anyway.  o-)

Personally, I think we need to be aware of the uses and
abuses of cookies, server logs, cache files, etc, and then
make our own local decisions as to how to deal with them.

Good topic, and well worth discussing.  If you REALLY want
to get this going, take it to libref-l or someplace like that.  o-)

dan