{"id":37203,"date":"2023-12-09T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-09T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cf252166-8f30-4d2a-8f06-0b4df22931fa"},"modified":"2023-12-09T17:46:13","modified_gmt":"2023-12-09T16:46:13","slug":"why-declining-cookies-could-now-be-worse-for-your-privacy-than-accepting","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/rss_feed\/why-declining-cookies-could-now-be-worse-for-your-privacy-than-accepting\/","title":{"rendered":"Why declining cookies could now be worse for your privacy than accepting"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it comes to privacy, the choice to accept or reject cookies is a catch-22. Here’s why \u2013 and what you should do. <\/p>

By Noa Leach\n <\/p>

Published: Saturday, 09 December 2023 at 16:00 PM<\/p>

\n\n

Do you click \u2018Reject all\u2019 or painstakingly toggle off every cookie option when on a new website? Well, you in may be revealing more information about yourself than if you just \u2018Accept all cookies\u2019, says new research.<\/p>

Cookies are (as you probably know at this point in internet history) not delicious chewy treats, but rather pieces of data. These data are stored on our devices for various purposes, including remembering our login details so we don\u2019t need to type them in every time we return to a website. Cookies can also track our online behaviour so that companies can tailor adverts to us individually.<\/p>

Many people do not want this \u2013 whether because they want their personal information private or because they don\u2019t want companies using it to sell them things.<\/p>

But new research, announced at NeurIPS 2023 (one of the largest artificial intelligence<\/a> conferences in the world), reveals that there is a particular demographic who do this more than other people \u2013 and the advertisers know this. That means cookie-rejectors may not really be keeping their identity hidden at all<\/a>.<\/p>

So who is in this group? Cookie acceptance tends to depend on which country you live in and what age you are. Turns out, if you live in America and are over 34 years old, this is likely to be you \u2013 which means you are more likely to be giving your data away unintentionally.<\/p>

\u201cThe advertisers might have five pieces of information from one person who’s accepted the cookies and only two pieces of information from the person who’s declined it (the website they’re on currently, and the fact that they’ve declined it). But there’s more information encoded in that decision,\u201d one of the study\u2019s authors Dr Elizabeth Daly<\/a>, an IBM research scientist, told BBC Science Focus<\/em>.<\/p>

If you click \u2018Reject all\u2019, the algorithm assumes you are part of this demographic and applies what\u2019s called \u2018collaborative filtering\u2019 to tailor content to you. It notes what other users in this group search for and then offers you the same.<\/p>

Privacy for some, but not for all<\/h2>

The researchers think that this demographic is more likely to reject cookies because older people are less trusting of tech companies. In fact, according to earlier research<\/a>, only 28 per cent of older Americans say they accept cookies when visiting a new website. That’s compared to the 40 per cent of younger Americans (under 34 years old) who usually accept cookies.<\/p>

This means if a younger American wants to reject cookies, their decision is more likely to have the intended effect \u2013 shielding their identity \u2013 than for an older person. \u201cThat’s not fair, from a goal of preserving privacy,\u201d said Daly.<\/p>

Also, the USA doesn\u2019t have the same data protection laws as the EU \u2013 so US users may be aware that their information is less robustly protected. The highest rate of cookie acceptance in the world is actually in Poland, where 64 per cent of people of any age say that they usually click \u2018Accept all cookies\u2019.<\/p>

The authors hope that their research will inform policymakers when it comes to creating rules for regulating new technology like AI. \u201cThey really need to understand that the control mechanisms are very complicated \u2013 and they may not have the desired impact when they’re in use,\u201d Daly said.<\/p>

So\u2026 is there any point in rejecting cookies?<\/h2>

The researchers also hope that the discovery helps people understand how to better protect their privacy.<\/p>

\u201cWe want to illustrate to users that the impact of their privacy decisions is not as straightforward as it may seem,\u201d the paper\u2019s first author Dr Erik Miehling<\/a> told BBC Science Focus<\/em>.<\/p>

\u201cMany modern advertising techniques use all available user information \u2014 including their privacy decisions \u2014 to construct more accurate user profiles. Users should be aware that their decision to accept or decline cookies can have counterintuitive effects on how much the system knows about them.\u201d<\/p>

So what should you do? Is it better just to accept cookies? According to Daly, the point is this information is so out of our control that there is not much we can<\/em> do.<\/p>

Nevertheless, Daly suggests making the decision randomly to confuse the algorithm \u2013 a method she practises herself. \u201cIt’s whatever mood I’m in the day that determines whether I accept or reject.\u201d<\/p>

Miehling recommends using more privacy-conscious browsers (such as Brave). Plus, he suggests we all \u201csupport stronger privacy laws and regulations that require more transparency around how your information will be used.\u201d<\/p>

About our experts<\/h2>

Dr Elizabeth Daly<\/strong> is a computer research scientist who leads the Interactive AI Group at the IBM Research Laboratory, Dublin. She is also an adjunct assistant professor at Trinity College Dublin, and her research has been published in Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence<\/em> and the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research<\/em>.<\/p>

Dr Erik Miehling<\/strong> is a research scientist at IBM Research. His research has been published in Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems<\/em>, and at the American Control Conference (ACC)<\/em> and the International Conference on Decision and Game Theory for Security<\/em>.<\/p>

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