Cookies and Online Tracking

What is Cookies and Online Tracking?

Within Computer Science, which covers algorithms, programming, data, networks, hardware and safe, responsible use of technology, this topic explains Cookies and Online Tracking. Computing topics explain how software, hardware and data work, with diagrams and models that show each step in order.

Check that you can explain Cookies and Online Tracking in your own words and give one example from everyday life. If you can do that, you have understood the core idea.

Understanding Cookies and Online Tracking helps you design, test and explain programs, websites and systems, from small projects to exam questions.

Cookies and Online Tracking in detail

Cookies are small text files that websites store in your browser to remember information, such as login status, items in a shopping basket and preferences. Session cookies are deleted when you close the browser, and persistent cookies stay for a set time. Third-party cookies come from other sites, such as advertisers, and can track you across many sites.

Tracking builds a profile of interests for targeted advertising, which raises privacy concerns. Laws such as GDPR require sites to ask for consent. You can manage cookies in browser settings, use private browsing, block trackers or clear data. Understanding cookies helps you make informed choices.

How the interactive helps you understand Cookies and Online Tracking

Watch the network in the interactive. Use any sliders or buttons it offers to change the values and see how the network responds.

Before you change anything, predict the result. Then change one value at a time and check whether your prediction was right. This is a quick way to build a correct mental model of Cookies and Online Tracking.

Real-life uses and examples

• Explain Cookies and Online Tracking to someone new to computing by comparing it to a familiar process.
• Trace through a process that uses Cookies and Online Tracking to check what it does step by step.
• Recognise Cookies and Online Tracking in an app or device you use every day.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Using the term without being able to say what the computer actually does.
• Testing only the normal case and forgetting the edge cases.
• Learning the definition without testing it. Use the quiz and the interactive to check that you can apply the idea.