Today I will linger over a topic that’s hot, cookies. I am not too familiar with digital cookies, I admit. I am even not too fond of their sweet aliases. But here I am, new European legislation forcing me to give cookies some attention. Incidentally, this is a situation in which I commonly found myself since eLearning occupies my time: new subjects sprouting on my path, requiring some understanding, inviting me to learn. Isn’t that the calling of all teachers: unending learning?
Since Saturday, 26th of May, European websites are obliged to inform their visitors of the cookies that will silently be placed on their electronic devices during the visit. Good. This will keep eavesdroppers at bay. No uninformed and unauthorized tracking of my wanderings through the internet, no unallowed skimming of my identity, no profiling where the only profile I care for is the one written by myself.
Now, let’s return to our Moodle learning platform and continue with the job of teaching. But hear this. Although eWallah doesn’t track nor skim, and does not harbour second grade commercial intentions, we do use cookies and are subject to the law. Some of the cookies we place are even first-party session cookies. They’re necessary for our users to stay logged in when moving through the pages.
And there is more. Any learning platform administrator who respects himself and enjoys an original creation will have at least some plugins installed that do not belong to the core software of Moodle. Enter the third-party cookies. By showing our users the geographical location of one another, we open a line for Google maps to push their cookies to our users’ computers. By allowing the use of repositories like Flickr, we take the lid of their cookie jar. Digital cookies are omnipresent, and they travel fast. The new legislation makes it apparently easier to know them and refuse them. It does not make them crumble.
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