{"id":1297,"date":"2011-03-22T10:51:58","date_gmt":"2011-03-22T18:51:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/?p=1297"},"modified":"2011-03-22T10:51:58","modified_gmt":"2011-03-22T18:51:58","slug":"cookie-abuse-absurd-expiration-dates-how-to-fix-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/cookie-abuse-absurd-expiration-dates-how-to-fix-this\/","title":{"rendered":"Cookie Abuse: Absurd Expiration Dates & How to Fix This"},"content":{"rendered":"

Doop-de-doop, just adjusting the settings on Safari so’s it doesn’t keep opening up a new window every time I click a link. It’s one of the default settings in Safari that I really deplore. Maybe this made sense back when Safari first came out, and it was common to open new instances of a browser when you were doing something complicated like (gasp!) viewing two of the literally dozens of websites that were then in existence — at the same time!<\/strong> Wowee-zowie! It makes no sense for Safari to have defaults that make it act like Internet Explorer 3.0<\/a> or Netscape Navigator.<\/p>\n

(Aside: have you ever tried to explain to someone younger than 20 what it was like to be “mousetrapped”<\/a> back in the day? Do any of you remember what being “mousetrapped” on your browser was like? Hello? Is this thing on…?)<\/p>\n

Anyway, I happened to click on the Security tab and then the Show Cookies button. Here’s what I saw:<\/p>\n

\"list<\/a>

This is a short list of the cookies on my Mac. I've expunged some of the scary-looking hexcode on the right. Pay attention to the dates in the column in pink.<\/p><\/div>\n

Yeah, that’s right. Some of the cookies on my computer won’t expire until nearly 30 years after I hit my 100th birthday. Most of the others will (supposedly) stay resident and not expire for another quarter-century.<\/p>\n

Who does this? I mean, really? Is it really sensible in any way to assume that this computer, as much as I love & use it on a daily basis, will still be alive and kicking in more than 10 years? Or even 5? Have these guys even heard of Moore’s Law<\/a>? I’m not bumming specifically on Lynda.com, because there are many other offenders, different only in degree.<\/p>\n

But really, this is user abuse. Why would you cram something onto my machine that is so obviously useless, unless<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. You figure your average user is too thickwitted to actually delete their cookies regularly<\/a>, the way most websavvy users do<\/a> (or at least try to – more about that in a bit)<\/li>\n
  2. You arbitrarily picked a date far into the future because you couldn’t be bothered to take the extra 30 seconds to actually consider the needs of your audience;<\/li>\n
  3. You are being sneaky and underhanded, and you’re either planting what amounts to spyware on my computer<\/a>, or you are actively engaging in the practice of Zombie Cookies<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    It is #3 above that really gets my goat. It exploits the users’ trust<\/a>, relying on the same obliviousness that makes so many of us just click on the “I Agree” button when faced with these labyrinthine EULAs<\/a> & suchlike<\/a>. This is short-term thinking. And it is wrong.<\/p>\n

    This has changed the way that I look at the sites that have placed these kinds of hidden, ill-considered material on my computer. I pass this on in the hopes that other users voice their concerns as well — only if enough people start becoming aware of shady practices like this will companies start policing themselves.<\/p>\n

    Useful stuff: If you want Safari to stop acting like Internet Explorer\/Netscape circa 1997, here’s what you do:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Under the Safari menu, click on “Preferences” (\u00e2\u0152\u02dc,)<\/li>\n
    2. Click on the Tabs tab (and yes, I know how that sounds, but that’s what it is)<\/li>\n
    3. Click on the pulldown menu next to “Open pages in tabs instead of windows” and choose anything other than “Never”<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Some of the cookies on my computer won’t expire until nearly 30 years after I hit my 100th birthday. Most of the others will (supposedly) stay resident and not expire for another quarter-century.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,5],"tags":[867,507,509,351,508,510,9,390,506],"class_list":["post-1297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conspiracy-theories","category-digital-migration","tag-conspiracy-theories","tag-deleting-browser-cookies","tag-lazy-developers","tag-new-media-strategery","tag-underhanded-info-mining-techniques","tag-victimizing-your-audience","tag-web-tech","tag-webscams","tag-zombie-cookies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1297\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}