Google, Cookies and Privacy

The privacy debate that continues on ad infinitum is certainly an interesting and timely one. In fact, I believe that the problem of privacy invasion will become one of the major mainstream discussion points of the early 21th century as more and more people educate themselves on some of the practices that websites use.

As to where I fall on the subject, more often than not, I side with the people here. I'm a believer that people should be able to what they chose, within the confines of the law, in private. It should not necessarily be public knowledge that your 45 year-old neighbor spends his evenings in a pink dress while watching Teletubbies, nor if your 15 year-old neighbor spends her time watching explicit videos. I disagree with large sections of the Patriot Act. I'm a firm believer in the freedom of speech and expression People should be free to act however they want in their own private space (and in most instances, in the public space as well). They should not be judged or labeled as a result. Yet, I'm not sure how I feel about cookies, as I believe, for the most part, that this is a privacy issue that gets too much attention.

While some may find it invasive that a company could potentially be looking at your browsing habits and as a result, catering their website to better fit your needs and desires, I find it convenient that the next time that I access the site, parts of it will be pre-loaded as I want it. Some worry that ESPN.com (or for the purposes of our discussion, Google) takes down some info about you to better serve you (and sell to you) the next time you visit the site. I don't. People often think that their actions are more important to massive companies than they actually are. Chances are, that if a cookie is placed on your machine by Amazon, Jeff Bezos isn't looking to use you to take over the world. It's probably so Amazon can give you those nifty recommendations the next time you stop by to check out the daily Gold Box sales. They may use some basic info about you to conduct some marketing. They probably aren't looking over your entire browsing history in order to see if you frequent adult oriented sites. Bezos could care less.

Still, I recognize the fear, the big brother mentality that accompanies this type of "harmless" cookie. I just don't buy it. It's something when a town places cameras at every intersection in town (hello, West Hartford!) and could feasibly track your cars every move (although once again, I'm thinking West Hartford has bigger issues on their mind than whether the white Prius driven by Kevin Simpson has passed over South Main Street yet. Is there a potential cause for concern here? Could cookies feasibly be manipulated to track your every move? Absolutely. Yet, my issues with privacy generally come with their inhibition of your everyday activities, when they get in the way of being able to live a normal life. But, when the "invasion of privacy" comes with faster load times, better website experiences and catered ads? I'll take my chances.