Ask HN: Replacing the word “Cookie” by “Tracer/Tracker” in banners

16 points by mehdim 4 years ago | 5 comments

The word cookie is misleading in explaining to the general public audience about what is really happening in Martech and Adtech about their data. By using the work "tracker" or "tracer", it would be more transparent for users about their consent on accepting being tracked/traced for ads or performance purposes. What do you think?

Edit : "Do you accept our cookies" would be "Do you accept our tracers/trackers"

sibit 4 years ago |

This would even help some of my clients. I had a client say "we need to be compliant add a cookie banner" so I did. A week later they call me up in a panic saying their engagement (Google Analytics) had almost completely fallen off and I explained people are probably declining the cookies.

Nextgrid 4 years ago |

That's what the GDPR mandates already - the problem is that there's no serious enforcement of it so websites are allowed to get away with non-compliant banners.

Cookies is purely for the previous "ePrivacy Directive" (aka stupid cookie law) but nowadays you must comply with both - and complying with the GDPR will in the vast majority of cases inherently comply with the ePrivacy Directive anyway.

ge96 4 years ago |

Side question, why does a site need cookies?

ranguna 4 years ago | |

Example of essential: http only secure cookies to store JWTs.

Non essential: majority of easy to use managed and mostly free analytics software.

kevincox 4 years ago | |

The most common example of required cookies is to know which user is logged in.