WEB surfers with any desire for privacy loathe cookies: the tiny data ID tags that websites continually download onto your hard drive. Now an alternative system is being developed to give users more control over any personal information generated as they browse.
Website owners argue that cookies give their sites 鈥渕emory鈥�, allowing them to distinguish one user from another. They allow the site to remember a person鈥檚 shopping preferences or deliver tailored news content. Many users are content with this, but others object to corporations profiling their every click.
The new system, developed by Lykourgos Petropoulakis of the University of Strathclyde in the UK, could keep both sides happy. It centres on a package called WebMetric, which website owners buy to install on their servers.
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Individual users will need to download a matching free program. They can then control whether or not information about them is revealed to the websites that they visit. When users are happy for a website to monitor their activity, they turn the software on and it delivers the data required by the site. Otherwise, they turn it off.
Unlike disabling cookies which can limit site access and cause a storm of pop-up items to appear, there will be no detrimental effects. This is because the chosen website does not know whether you have the software turned on or off: it only gets a log of your activity after you leave. And the log document may be empty, if you choose to turn off.
The WebMetric software still captures and stores information on a user鈥檚 browser activity, but the user retains control of it. For example, the program on the surfer鈥檚 PC will be able to monitor and copy the user鈥檚 behaviour when shopping online. By memorising the items bought on, say, an online supermarket site and offering them up next time, it can make shopping quicker. Cookie-based supermarket servers already do this, but WebMetric will give you control of your data.
WebMetric鈥檚 development is being funded by the development agency Scottish Enterprise. For it to take off, Petropoulakis will have to convince the world鈥檚 websites to adopt it and buy the software. But he hopes the attraction of user control will encourage people to download the software, forcing the websites to adopt it too.
Cookies currently give website operators a great deal of information that they will be reluctant to lose. For example, by generating figures about how popular their sites are, they provide invaluable sales information for advertisers.
WebMetric鈥檚 monitoring of a user鈥檚 browser activity will collect even more information than cookies, warns Ian Brown of the privacy think-tank the Foundation for Policy Information Research. Petropoulakis counters that only willing surfers will download his software, so he sees no privacy issue.
