Cookies are files in websites that remember different things that you have looked at or clicked on. We’ve all seen how their used. Whether its items that are saved in a shopping cart after you leave the site or login information for things like Blackboard, cookies can help make our lives easier and save us time.

But are cookies a completely thing? A lot of people say no. Many times publishers can sell your information to third parties. This can cause you to receive a lot of targeted online advertising and gives websites and companies that you have no visited access to personal information about yourself.

Even worse than just the annoying advertisements that pop up, cookies can be used to track your online activity without your permission. This is an invasion of your privacy. An example of how this can happen is if you are on a certain website. If there are online ads on that page, they can all have cookies in them that can track you even if you did not click on the ad. Also, even though cookies themselves are totally bad, there is a possibility that third parties or even hackers can get information from cookies that allows them to see your personal information and browsing history.

There are ways to let cookies help you while at the same time keeping your computer and privacy safe. You can limit tracking cookies by using things like search engines that are more private, you can manually go in an delete certain cookies or you can use a VPN (Virtual Private Network) that will mask your IP address and keep your information from being tracked and followed.

Cookies are like most things in this world. There are good parts and bad parts that you have to take together. For the most part, cookies help more than they hurt but you should always look your for your safety and privacy online.