The inventor of the cookies apologizes for their misuse
Gone are the days when we ate the cookies. Today, they are eating us! In a figurative sense, yes, but these are good those who puncture our browsing data and our habits. You have the misfortune to accept cookies from a site on which you have searched for new curtains, and now they follow you everywhere you go! Are you going to a boomerang site? Another on how to repair your faucet? A third to find a kouglof recipe? Three totally different subjects and yet the same advertisement that keeps coming back: these coveted curtains! Blame it on those pesky digital cookies that undermine our security on the Internet. Are cookies annoying you? Their creator apologizes.
Such is cookie believed to take
Lou Montulli really did not think that cookies, which he created in 1994, would take on such a large impact on the daily lives of billions of people. The American wanted simply help us save time and make browsing the internet easier. It is indeed his invention that allows us, for example, to be able to enter a site without the latter having the impression that it is the first time that you have visited it. Interviewed by theAFP, he explains to be the first surprised by the use made of it nowadays.
My invention is central to online advertising strategies, but that was not the point. It’s just a core technology that makes the web work.
If this intrusive commercial use is indeed the one that is most highlighted today, you should know that cookies above all allow things that are essential for the proper functioning of the Web. Posting comments, adding an item to a cart or automatically logging in are some examples of their use. The real problem, according to the engineer, are third-party cookies set up by other sites to be integrated into browsers and advertising agencies.
It is only thanks to the collusion between many sites and an advertising network that targeted advertising is possible. (…) If you do research on a weird niche product and find yourself bombarded with ads for that product on different sites, it’s a weird experience.
He thus understands with sadness that people today can be wary of his invention, which has thus gained the negative aura of a spy in the pay of companies who want to encourage us to empty our current accounts. So how do we get out of it?
In 1994, Cookies, SSL & HTTPS were created. These technologies helped to launch secure commerce on the web. #Web30 #ForTheWeb pic.twitter.com/iMqLCTJI8r
— montulli (@montulli) March 12, 2019
Moving targets
It is true that this targeting can quickly become painful when surfing the web. There are many ad blockers, but the networks always find a way around them anyway. Moreover, they do part of an economic system that is also beneficial to us on the other hand. As Montulli reminds us, without advertising, searching on Google would be profitable for users. Here we find ourselves faced with the old adage ” If it’s free, you’re the product. “. However, its cookie policy being a little too invasive, the American firm has nevertheless been inflicted a fine of 150 million euros by the CNIL. Facebook was also taken by the patrol and will have to reduce by 60 million. We almost want to talk about a drop of water when we know how much advertising brings to these two companies. The creator of the cookies also warns against the danger of prohibiting them for commercial purposes because the response could be even more dangerous.
Advertising will find a solution. It will become a technological arms race given the billions of dollars at stake, and the advertising industry will do what is necessary to keep the ship afloat.
For him, the only viable solution to satisfy all parts of the equation will come of a regulation which will allow third-party cookies to be maintained while setting up control tools including the option to accept or not the sharing of data.
The web would be truly unusable without cookies. But we will have to change the way they are used by advertisers.
Closing? We haven’t finished eating it and fattening Google and his gluttonous buddies that no fine will lead to a diet.
