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CookieCert Cookie Database and Certification Service Launch
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NEWS - Jan 24, 2012
The new CookieCert website, database and certification service has official launched in beta status.
After 2 months of rapid development and an initial crawl of over 40,000 of the top Alexa ranked websites we have official launched our online cookie database. Our database is intended to serve as a free resource to inform and educate web users and professionals about the cookies created by the sites they visit regularly.
There is an ongoing and growing concern about user privacy and tracking technologies used by websites today. In the US for example there have been major developments surrounding the SOPA legislation, and there have been huge changes undertaken in the online advertising industry over the past year or two with the introduction of AdChoices. Europe has gone even further with it's new EU Cookie Directive, a piece of legislation (yes, that means it is the LAW!) requiring websites to gain user consent before creating any browser cookies.
With such changes and many more on the horizon we have been busy developing our site to help users and site owners gain some transparency and control. As our name suggests the we are focused primarily on the privacy domain of cookies, one of the core technologies that holds the web together. Cookies are used everywhere for purposes ranging from the benign (shopping carts and logins) to the more questionable (tracking your behavior and selling the data to other companies). In the current landscape it can be hard for users to know what cookies are being created about them and what those cookies are for. Even worse the invention of new types of "super" cookies in the past few years has led to an increase in the complexity of the technology, making it harder to track down and identify every possible type of cookie being created.
Here at CookieCert we are taking a pro-active approach to the problem by crawling websites around the clock, much like search engines do to incorprate pages into their search results. The only difference is that we do not look at the page content like search engines, but rather at the cookies that are being created in the browser. Our crawler technology will identify all types of currently used cookies (standard types, HTML5 and Flash), and it stores this data in the CookieCert Database for users to view. It also finds cookies that are created by third party sites, which are are cookies that are created on the site you are visiting but which do not belong to the site you are visiting. For example, many ad networks will create a cookie when you see an ad on your favorite sites but this cookie belongs to the ad network and can be used to track as you move to other sites.
As well as providing the online cookie database CookieCert we are also using the data to provide a cookie certification service for websites. Through the data gathered about a site's cookies we are able to determine if a site is responsible in it's cookie usage. Responsible sites can apply for official certification, resulting in the ability to place a CookieCert tag on their website to alleviate their users concerns. Certification also carries extra benefits such as more frequent site checks and more in depth site analysis.
Certification is like TRUSTe, but for cookies. As an independent company we have no vested interest in who is certified and who is not, which adds to the legitmacy of the certification service and seal we offer. By earning certification sites are going above and beyond the needs of current privacy requirements in the US. In Europe though these requirements are already upon them so we are here to help those sites get compliant with the law and show good faith to do so with an independent verification body.
Certification aside, we feel CookieCert is a great free resource for consumers and websites. There is nothing else out there that we know of that provides this type of information. Our cookie auditing is completely free and so is our cookie consent tag and on-site resources and articles. So enjoy, and please drop us some feedback if you have ideas, suggestions or want to help in some way.
After 2 months of rapid development and an initial crawl of over 40,000 of the top Alexa ranked websites we have official launched our online cookie database. Our database is intended to serve as a free resource to inform and educate web users and professionals about the cookies created by the sites they visit regularly.
There is an ongoing and growing concern about user privacy and tracking technologies used by websites today. In the US for example there have been major developments surrounding the SOPA legislation, and there have been huge changes undertaken in the online advertising industry over the past year or two with the introduction of AdChoices. Europe has gone even further with it's new EU Cookie Directive, a piece of legislation (yes, that means it is the LAW!) requiring websites to gain user consent before creating any browser cookies.
With such changes and many more on the horizon we have been busy developing our site to help users and site owners gain some transparency and control. As our name suggests the we are focused primarily on the privacy domain of cookies, one of the core technologies that holds the web together. Cookies are used everywhere for purposes ranging from the benign (shopping carts and logins) to the more questionable (tracking your behavior and selling the data to other companies). In the current landscape it can be hard for users to know what cookies are being created about them and what those cookies are for. Even worse the invention of new types of "super" cookies in the past few years has led to an increase in the complexity of the technology, making it harder to track down and identify every possible type of cookie being created.
Here at CookieCert we are taking a pro-active approach to the problem by crawling websites around the clock, much like search engines do to incorprate pages into their search results. The only difference is that we do not look at the page content like search engines, but rather at the cookies that are being created in the browser. Our crawler technology will identify all types of currently used cookies (standard types, HTML5 and Flash), and it stores this data in the CookieCert Database for users to view. It also finds cookies that are created by third party sites, which are are cookies that are created on the site you are visiting but which do not belong to the site you are visiting. For example, many ad networks will create a cookie when you see an ad on your favorite sites but this cookie belongs to the ad network and can be used to track as you move to other sites.
As well as providing the online cookie database CookieCert we are also using the data to provide a cookie certification service for websites. Through the data gathered about a site's cookies we are able to determine if a site is responsible in it's cookie usage. Responsible sites can apply for official certification, resulting in the ability to place a CookieCert tag on their website to alleviate their users concerns. Certification also carries extra benefits such as more frequent site checks and more in depth site analysis.
Certification is like TRUSTe, but for cookies. As an independent company we have no vested interest in who is certified and who is not, which adds to the legitmacy of the certification service and seal we offer. By earning certification sites are going above and beyond the needs of current privacy requirements in the US. In Europe though these requirements are already upon them so we are here to help those sites get compliant with the law and show good faith to do so with an independent verification body.
Certification aside, we feel CookieCert is a great free resource for consumers and websites. There is nothing else out there that we know of that provides this type of information. Our cookie auditing is completely free and so is our cookie consent tag and on-site resources and articles. So enjoy, and please drop us some feedback if you have ideas, suggestions or want to help in some way.
