The media bangs on about privacy, yet every day we happily give it up. Walking down the street, agreeing to some long T&Cs or just visiting a website. The vast majority of people don't care, don't understand and mostly don't care to understand. The 'cookie' directive set by the EU in some closet far from any internet connection have forced every single site operating from Europe to diminish their user experience. Rant over, time to be compliant.
| Cookie | Name | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Cookie Consent | cookieconsent_dismissed | To say you've seen the message about the evil computer people coming to murder your pet dog. |
| Google Analytics | _gat | To track your every click, to murder Fido with clicks. If you want to know exactly how we plot your dog's doom you can view Google's policy |
| _ga | ||
| _hjUserId |
Cookies are already too restrictive, it would be awesome if there was such a thing as a sharable cookie that sites other than the curator could access. For example when you get asked would you like to login to your favourite cake baking site: here are 40 different logins pick yours! What a bummer, If that site could look at just the very existence of a cookie from google or facebook (as an example) we could say hey we think you use Facebook to login, if not just go to this page of 40 others. That would make a much more simple interface and quicker logins for the vast majority of users. But now it is absolutely secret that we can't know you use facebook.
How it should be done
In reality these controls should be handled at the browser level not site by site. Each site handles the problem differently, it means for an inconsistent interface every time a user visits a new site. We already have cookie controls to some degree by the browsers, but the browser folks thought "hey thats about enough". The EU doom day MEPs figured it would be best if we told you every time you visited a site that it was doing what all the other sites were doing. Seriously this would be much better as an icon in the chrome like SSL or your favourite button.
Here is my suggested solution:
Thanks to http://pspchino.deviantart.com/ for the icon I used. Header image credit to: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nettsu/4555506269
Stop Press
Many people might be thinking I hold their personal data in low regard. They would be totally right, the thing i.s I don't care about your data. I care about you in the sense that I try to serve every person who visits my site as best as possible But I'm not going to steal your wife, frame you for fraud or call you pretending to be a bank manager from Nigeria. A cookie notice won't do much to deter the folks that way inclined anyway. Rant over, for real this time.
_hjUserId (hotjar.com) Hotjar cookie. This cookie is set as soon as a user loads a page which contains the Hotjar code. The cookie contains a universally unique identifier (UUID) which allows Hotjar to track the same visitor across multiple pages and sessions. 365 days _hjClosedSurveyInvites (hotjar.com) Hotjar cookie. This cookie is set once a visitor interacts with a Survey invitation modal popup. It is used to ensure that the same invite does not re-appear if it has already been shown. 365 days _hjDonePolls (hotjar.com) Hotjar cookie. This cookie is set once a visitor completes a poll using the Feedback Poll widget. It is used to ensure that the same poll does not re-appear if it has already been filled in. 365 days _hjMinimizedPolls (hotjar.com) Hotjar cookie. This cookie is set once a visitor minimizes a Feedback Poll widget. It is used to ensure that the widget stays minimizes when the visitor navigates through your site. 365 days _hjDoneTestersWidgets (hotjar.com) Hotjar cookie. This cookie is set once a visitor submits their information in the Recruit User Testers w%%%idget. It is used to ensure that the same form does not re-appear if it has already been filled in. 365 days _hjMinimizedTestersWidgets (hotjar.com) Hotjar cookie. This cookie is set once a visitor minimizes a Recruit User Testers widget. It is used to ensure that the widget stays minimizes when the visitor navigates through your site. 365 days _hjIncludedInSample (hotjar.com) Hotjar cookie. This session cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether that visitor is included in the sample which is used to generate funnels. Session