An extension for Chrome automatically disables non – essential ‘cookies’

A group of researchers has developed a Chrome extension which, under the name of CookieEnforcer, reacts automatically to notices about cookie preferences and decides instead of the user disabling all those that are not considered essential.

The ‘cookies’ have become the objective of privacy policies, insofar as in addition to facilitating essential website operations also give access to user activity, either for personalize your experience well for monitor their behavior.

It is a legislated element, included in texts such as the General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union or the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA, in English), in which it is stated that the user must consent to the use of ‘cookies’ and be informed about their function.

This information is broken down into notices about ‘cookies’ preferences when entering a web page, along with options on the complete acceptance of them, the necessary ones or even none at all. But these notices present usability issues, because it is not easy to interact with them, they are not always understood or displayed in various notifications. This complicates the right of users to have an informed control of the ‘cookies’.

A proposal to solve this situation is CookieEnforcer, a machine learning system that simulates user behavior and decides instead which are the essential ‘cookies’ in order to continue protecting privacy.

This system identifies the notice of the ‘cookies’ the textual features, control options it offers, as well as your current status (selected or not selected). With this he is able to conclude which are cookies not necessary and disable them.

CookieEnforcer, developed by researchers at Google and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (United States) offers a 91 percent efficiency when it comes to automatically disabling non-essential ‘cookies’, as stated in the text of the study.

THE ‘COOKIES’ AND THE USER EXPERIENCE

CookieEnforcer’s development was followed by its testing as a Chrome browser extension, with 180 participants. As the researchers explain, this system “reduces the time needed to adjust cookie settings on a set of 14 popular websites by a factor of 2.35, without the need for any clicks.”

In a hands-on examination of the 100 most popular websites in the UK and in English according to the Tranco list, the researchers found that of the 48 pages that displayed ‘cookie’ users spent an average of 3.5 clicks to disable non-essential ones. Even 13 percent of the websites lacked the option to disable these ‘cookies’.

In a subsequent analysis of user behavior, the results show that 12 percent did not interact with ‘cookie’ notices, another 12 percent rejected them when you interacted with them and 76 percent accepted cookies from at least one web page.

Participants’ coded responses showed that most allowed cookies, contrary to their stated preference, “because of the forced-interaction nature of the ad,” that is, because even if they prefer not to be monitored, sometimes they have no choice but to accept.

Other participants also accepted the ‘cookies’ for having misconceptions about the operation of these items. But, according to the study, none mentioned risk factors.

By Editor

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