Up... Up... and... Supercookies!

Users are conscious that every time they go online, someone is watching them. Regardless of size, companies use updated technology just to be able to keep track of users’ online behavior. Users also realize that companies have one purpose in doing this, and that is for marketing. Trackers keep an eye on which sites are visited by a user, how long the user stays on each site, and what pages he or she visits before leaving. They are also concerned with the users’ interests, as revealed in the categories of posts that users read, and by comments that they leave.

Tracking is made possible mainly with the use of HTTP cookies. These are packets of information that are used to store the user’s preferences. Cookies were originally intended to be used to improve a user’s browsing experience. Because of cookies, users do not have to enter their basic information, like user name or password, every time they visit the same site.

The strategy of using cookies to store private information has previously stirred privacy concerns. Browsers responded by providing options for users to decide whether they want cookies to be stored or not. A user can easily delete cookies when he or she finds that they are not needed anymore. Because of this, it can be assumed that users have complete control over their private data.

Times seemed to have changed, and control is slipping away from the user. A privacy researcher revealed that today, users can be tracked even when cookie storage is disabled or when the user browses in privacy mode. The new tracking technology uses “supercookies”, which cannot be deleted. It is able to “revive” cookies after they were deleted. It can also bring together a user’s browsing history across two or more different browsers.

The supercookie uses a matchless identifier known as ETag. Researchers at Stanford University and UC Berkeley discovered that some companies are already using supercookies. The researchers identified one supercookie that is able to look back at web-browsing history. They observed that it can dig deep into the sites that the user has visited; as many as 1,500 of those. They supposed that this new kind of cookie is interested in what products the user is thinking of buying. It is very much the same as the older cookies, but this one is more intimidating because of its “immortality”.

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