What?
Lets try to make it short and simple.
- THEY say “Privacy matters!”. THEY know about us more than we do.
- There is no real “privacy” or “anonymity” on the internet.
What are cookies?
Cookies are very small text files that are stored on your computer when you visit some websites. They are with us since the times of the first websites. So they are nothing new.
They usually serve to support website functionality, like to remember what you have put in the basket in that particular internet store. Nowadays, they are also widely used by marketing companies to track pages that you visit, or more generally called, track your activities on the internet. So than, they can offer you targeted commercials.
What cookies are used on this website?
This website (ie. http://mouseviator.com) does not need any cookies to function properly. But somehow, you can guess, it is not fully true, actually, there must be a catch, right? Why would this page be there in the first place?
Ok, this website uses some 3rd party services. Those services uses cookies in the way I have no control over. If you are signed in any of the services mentioned below, like Facebook, Disqus etc., they will probably know what pages you visited on this website.
These services are:
- Google Analytics – which is used to track what pages on this web you visit so I know if don’t pay the domain and web hosting fees for nothing.
- Zopim Live Chat – to provide an option of live chat for the case you have some issues with the content on the site, or some suggestions.
- Plugin for social media – for all those Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and other “like” and “sharing” buttons for the unlikely event you want to share something from this site.
- Disqus – for you to leave a comment here and there on the site without the need to do another registration on the site you might have not full trust into. Let’s use proven system that works on more sites.
So what data you actually store?
This is mainly my personal web page. Since registrations are not allowed here, I am 99% sure that the database (the one for this website) does not contain any personal data other than mine. Comments, chat and analytics are handled by 3rd party services. So your personal data, such as email, your IP address and others are stored at their databases and some of them are accessible for me. Read the paragraph before and after this one.
I don’t like that
If you have problem with anything of what have been written above, there are two ways out:
- Way one (very simple one):
Dont use this web. - Way two:
Use some plugins that will block these services. However, some things on this web might not work as intended than.
Ghostery and Adblock Plus are good plugins that will help you with disabling these services (and a lot of others). I think they exist for all major web browsers.