'It's Bad Design on Purpose' – Why Website Cookie Banners Look Like That (2021)

vice.com

2 pointsdavidgerard2 comments

The article says “cookies are files your computer downloads when you enter a website” - isn’t this technically wrong? I thought cookies were just key/value pairs sent in http headers. Just bringing it up to make sure I’m not missing something

The reporter is not a web developer and has, likely, never written a computer program ever. And the reporter probably only knows HTTP as "those four letters at the start of a URL.

Due to that lack of domain knowledge, what the reporter /could/ understand was 'files'. So they wrote 'files' without ever understanding just how wrong that word was to describe a web cookie to those with the domain knowledge.

Now, remember this revelation you've had today when you read /other/ news articles written by this, or other, reporters. You'll find this effect everywhere: https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/.

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