Every time we log into our Facebook account or google the Game of Thrones or tweet about the Rohingya crisis, we leave a trail, the digital trail. While we browse Internet, we do not realise that Internet is browsing us too.
Digital footprints are the traceable trails that we create online whenever we use Internet, intentionally or unintentionally. These digital footprints contribute to drawing the picture of who we are browsing Internet-- as a student, an employee or simply as a person. This information is gathered through cookies. Cookies are small files that are stored on your computer. You enter a website using cookies and then provide your information, e.g. your name, email address, interests etc. Then, this information will be packaged into a cookie and sent to your web browser and thus, saved for later use.
This saved information serves a broad spectrum of purposes. If we save our login information in our devices, then it can save us the hassle of logging in every time we want to use that app. We can even subscribe to our favourite youtuber to keep track of what they are posting. But that is only a peek into how cookies are used. If you keep searching for mobile phones on your search engine, then the mobile companies can track your search preference through cookies and make you stumble upon the ads they want you to see. So, we can see that the cookies can be commercialised. Many companies that you have absolutely no link with, can and will use that information to capitalise. In fact, the cookies are being commercialised more than most of us can even begin to think.
But what about the digital footprints that we are leaving knowingly? Are we aware of the impact that these can have on our lives? As the world continues to grow more accustomed to using Internet, our online presence is harbouring more and more power to define us as people. When we come across new people, we find comfort in going through their profiles on social media to know more. Employers now use social media or networking media to target or screen their potential clients. If we want to order food from a restaurant for home delivery, we like to go through their customer reviews first to know what we are actually paying for.
In this era when we consider how much we have allowed technology to enter our personal space and lives, it becomes hard to find any youth without a footprint on the web. These trails bring out a new aspect of reputation that all of us need to be careful about.
The writer is a final year student of BBA programme at the Institute of Business Administration, University of Dhaka. She can be reached at [email protected]
