Who Put the Cookies in the Internet Jar...

When you log onto Facebook, isn’t it strange that no “remember me” box is checked, but your password and email are still in place? The same phenomenon will apply to websites like Amazon, Google, and YouTube, all very popular, heavily trafficked websites with consumers in mind and an emphasis on family values. Or so we thought. How does Amazon know what you’re looking for? Why are all of Facebook’s advertisements geared almost directly at you? All of these oddities can be explained by a simple, tasty word: cookies.
Cookies via the Internet are less enjoyable than an Oreo. Microsoft explains a cookie as:

“A very small text file placed on your hard drive by a Web Page server. It is essentially your identification card, and cannot be executed as code or deliver viruses. It is uniquely yours and can only be read by the server that gave it to you.”

In lemans terms, a cookie is a file downloaded onto your computer from a website, like Amazon, to store data, gather important consumer information, or create a user-specific, custom experience when visiting most recent websites. Cookies are essential for modern web browsing, some sites not allowing use if cookies aren’t enabled.
Cookies have always been a topic of privacy dispute. With their capability to gather information on consumers’ salary, age, and even location, some feel as if cookies are doing more harm than good. Recently, the Federal Trade Commission has been granted the responsibility of creating a so-called “do not track” list. Similar to the “do not call” list, the plan would allow Internet users a site to site function, letting them select to be tracked on the site or not. The “do not track” list and other ideas have been brought before the Federal Trade Commission and the Commerce Department, each taking a separate, even possibly conflicting, stance on the matter.
The Commerce Department has always let the industry self-regulate, while trade officials enjoy the idea of having websites offer a “do not track” feature on the site. Offering an option to consumers will make them feel more in control, possibly even excited at the idea of further or weaker customization. If the Federal Trade Commission makes a decision based on the ideals of consumers, then a whole new set of regulations will be placed on popular Internet sites and companies. If the Commerce Department is left to make the call, I feel as if big business will the most to say, pushing for a system much like the one now, allowing the sites to police themselves as they see fit.

For more information, head over to the New York Times.

Wysocki Blog #2 - Digital Divide

When Google and Verizon banned together to try and be the first to take advantage of nonexistent net neutrality regulations, the companys may have bitten off more than they can chew. To combat the Google-Verizon bill, four democratic lawmakers contacted the FCC chair, Julius Genachowski, stating that the bill introduced by the two major companies promotes an expansion in the digital divide. This is important because the matter of net neutrality is possibly the most important dispute of free speech in a very long time, and the digital divide is a subject gaining more and more popularity in the recent media. The digital divide is an unofficial line between the Internet have and have-nots. On one side of the gap, there are the people with the hardware, know-how, or both to grant themselves adequate and quick acces to a broadband service. On the other side, there are the few who suffer either educationally, geographically, or financially to achieve decent Internet. There are many places that have the technology for internet, but lack the skill or training to get online. It is important to close the gap in the digital divide because in doing so, internet access, along with everything included in access to the world wide web, will be granted to the user.
In the Google-Verizon bill to congress, the two companies introduce the idea of a monitored Internet patrolled by the FCC. If this were to happen, limitations would be put on wireless mobile devices as well. Reps. Edward Markey, Jay Inslee, Anna Eshoo, and Mike Doyle seemed to think that these regulations “could widen the digital divide by establishing a substandard, less open experience for traditionally underserved regions and demographic groups that may more often need to access or choose to access the Internet on a mobile device,” wrote the Representatives. What I think the Democrats are trying to say is that if strict regulations are put on mobile Internet, then it would impede some users connection speed or overall mobile internet experience that usually access the internet by means of a mobile device. While this is really one of the last ways that the digital divide is being widened, it certainly adds an interesting element to an already socially exciting argument. While the digital divide still has a long way to go before it becomes even remotely closed, it will be interesting to see how it evolves with it’s relationship to net neutrality.

First Podcast!

This is my first podcast for Wysocki's web publishing class!

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Losing Yourself in Yourself Online - Wysocki

Using online formats of social media to keep up with friends is a fun, easy way to stay in touch, but at what point do online relationships become too synthesized? Worrying about what others will think is a fear shared by people all over the world, online and face-to-face. But what if technological relationships are easier to control and monitor than that of actual concrete conversations and meetings? With so many different ways to express our feelings of animosity and love, do we realize that eventually we start to do and say things from the safety of our screens and QWERTY keypads, not thinking of negative reciprocations? Deciding what is important enough to broadcast to the world from a social media soapbox is directly related to the image of ourselves we fabricate from the things we let others know. Using networks like Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace allow others to see what we want them to see, using them as relationship pawns in our game of self identity. With constant status updates and subjective information posted at a rate decided entirely by the user, social media forums give anyone with the internet or even a good phone the option to set a stage for how others view them as people, friends, coworkers, etc. Even giving the user the option to deny or allow others from viewing their information supplies the user with a sense of power over others. This sense of power can often lead people to further warp the true identity they have thus far created for themselves. Once an identity has been established online, over time, others feedback will continue to shape and form the false sense of character, until the original user themselves may not even be able to differentiate what is real and what is simply a façade so as to fit in. Identifying what is real and what isn’t is at the discretion of the user, mostly going unrecognized by choice. To correctly establish an identity that meets all facets of social validity, one must first understand what requirements society has of them. Lying about a crucial part of who you are means simply lying to yourself, as onlookers wouldn’t be able to differentiate what is real and what isn’t in the hodgepodge manner of internet social media upkeep.

YES!

Mafia II is fantastic. If you have the means, I highly suggest picking it up. Amazon is running free shipping, or the demo is on the Xbox Live Marketplace.