Have you noticed websites are telling you they use cookies and asking for permissions? A new consumer privacy protection law called GDRP forces them to tell you they are adding cookies to your computer's browser when you visit their website.
What are cookies?
Simply put, a cookie is a small snippet of code that is stored in your computer’s browser storage. Many companies add cookies to your browser when you visit a website and most are not harmful, however, some cookies can track you online.
What are Tracking Cookies?
Tracking cookies are very different from regular cookies, they are used to monitor, track and report your online activity to remote third party databases for further analysis. This means many companies and agencies are tracking your every movement online and reporting it to remote databases. The data is typically sold to advertising companies who use your private data to sell higher priced ads and make more money.
How to tell if you are being tracked with tracking cookies
Have you ever noticed an ad following you around the Internet? As new ad technologies evolve, it is becoming increasingly common that an ad for a product or service you looked at previously will appear on an unrelated website hours or even days later. This is a prime example of tracking cookies are being used and how creepy, annoying, and invasive they can be.
How to block tracking cookies and protect your private information
The easiest way to protect your privacy and stop companies from using tracking cookies to track what you do online is to add a browser extension to your browser that blocks tracking cookies. We like one called Ad Removerbecause it will scan your browser and tell you if you have any current tracking cookies on it. Additionally, it blocks these tracking cookies and every type of online ad as well.
Ad Remover has tested their extension on the top 1800 websites and test results showed that by blocking tracking cookies and ads from loading, websites loaded 44% faster and used 19% less data on average.
