Cookies and Hacking Web 2.0

Just read the short, but interesting, post from shauninman.com where he comments on the cookie disclaimer on allthingsd.com. For some reason this post jumped out at me and made me realise that “oh yeah, cookies are taken for granted”. I mean it’s not like many people stop each and every cookie and inspect their content then pass judgement on whether to allow them or not. In fact, it is probably true that in many cases cookies are taken for granted by the same people who try and advocate against widespread acceptance of cookies.

So as a security expert I like the idea of providing an open disclaimer to your web-visiting-clientele explaining just what sort of cookies your website is going to create, but I can’t help but think that as a web-designer wanting to make any sort of money off your traffic you want to make sure that these sorts of things continue unhindered. So which is it? Explain how to remove the cookies, just don’t use the cookies? Remove your adds? Keep your adds?

I don’t know the answer and most likely it can only be decided on a case by case basis. Either way I like the initiative that allthingsd.com have taken in explaining what third-parties are involved in cookie placement.

On a side note I’ve been really interested in reading jungsonnstudios.com, recently renamed to 0×000000.com. A recent entry that I found REALLY informative was his link to a presentation presented in Dubai on Hacking Web 2.0. Not entirely unrelated to the first half of this post, as cookies do play a minor role in user experience and web2.0 stuff.

Posted by Christian 27 April 2007

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