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For this project, I chose to educate my peers on the safety concerns involving sharing your location and accepting cookies. I explain the aspects of privacy, data and costs and how this information could put you at risk. My main focus was to share how these components are often overlooked but making a change could protect your privacy.

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The article made me think about the apps I use and have on my phone. I recently downloaded a clothing app. When checking out it already knew which store is closest to me. I remember thinking it was strange because the only time I have purchased from this store I had it delivered to my house in New York. This reminded me of the situation because I must have my location shared for the app. This is strange because other than store location, they have no reason to be storing my location in their database. I will delete the app to ensure my every move isn’t being tracked.

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There is so much about cookies that I never understood. I think in this new age of technology it is important to have information about who has access to what. This led me to clear my cookies.I learned that a lot of the time we accept cookies without thinking about it . I decided that I would feel more comfortable using websites on my computer knowing that my every move isn’t being stored.

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I created a newspaper-style poster to engage my peers in the material I presented. I explained the two topics and guided them alongside as they navigated their settings. Following this, my peers took screenshots or photos of themselves making the changes.

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Beige Vintage Newspaper Birthday Party Poster

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Copy of Beige Vintage Newspaper Birthday Party Poster

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After reading “ Behind The Cookie Crumbs”, I learned that cookies allow websites to track your every move. Before I had no idea what cookies meant. I assumed that there were no potential risks because of how often I see websites promoting cookies. I can understand why it is beneficial for a company to want cookies but no one ever talks about the potential risks.

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Something that I took away is that all of my information is being stored somewhere. This made me think about all of the spam calls that I get. If my cookies are being accessed by third parties, this could mean my phone number was leaked to a database of some kind. I have always wondered where my phone number is accessed, and I think it’s due to sharing my cookies.

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I was not aware of the truth behind cookies until reading the paper. I learned that cookies can be beneficial in some ways. For example, when you login to your email and allow them to keep you signed in. This is only possible because of cookies and having your data stored. However, I still feel more comfortable having it off because otherwise I would be vulnerable online. I have a lot of personal information saved on my email and websites, I would rather login every time.

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I decided to look at some of my apps and their cookies settings. I decided to use a clothing brand, Urban Outfitters. They had three different cookie categories. One for analytics, personalization and marketing. It is quite shocking to me that they admit to using our information to skew the ads we get. They use our movements on the website as data on how to improve the site. This led me to turn them off, this way my movements aren’t traced.

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This made me think of snapchat location sharing. When using snapchat, you can turn your location on for your friends to see. It has reached a point where they allow people to pay for more features. These features include a ghost trail that shows your movements over the last 24 hours. Due to the exposure, I choose to have my snapchat location off. I was not aware of the deeper risks that involve location sharing.

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I decided to turn off my location for Instagram. I’m not sure why I had it on in the first place. I assume that it is somewhere in small print when you first download the app. I feel more comfortable using it knowing that they do not have my location at all times.

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I think its strange that it is normalized for society to be tracked. But when you think about it, each person must have at least one platform where more personal information is being exposed. Location settings try to trick you by making the tab for it small and not important. Due to this, I decided to stop sharing locations with all of my apps.

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I am glad that I learned about the risks of having my location shared. Something that stuck out to me is that due to the constant tracking, they are able to build a profile on your whereabouts and schedule. This is a safety risk that I would like to avoid by turning off my location for all of my apps.

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After reviewing my peers' feedback, I wasn’t surprised to learn that many of them were unaware of the risks associated with sharing their location. While sitting alongside my subjects as they read the “newspaper” and formed their opinions, I mentioned a study by The New York Times that demonstrated how a person’s location could be tracked to reveal their daily routine and schedule. Most of my peers were shocked that this information could be so detailed. A common theme in the feedback was that many people didn’t realize their location was being shared with multiple apps. From my research, it seems companies intentionally design this process to be overlooked, often using small, easily missed fine print for the accept/reject terms when first using a site.

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Similar to my knowledge before this project, many of my subjects had never thought about what cookies are. They all said they usually accept cookies without realizing what they are allowing websites to access. Many of my subjects were under the assumption that cookies must be enabled for the website to function. They were unaware that these sites categorize cookies into different types. They also didn’t realize that cookies are the reason our information is saved. All of my subjects expressed concern about their information being stored in a database and at risk of privacy breaches.

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Throughout this project I was able to educate my peers as well as myself on these privacy policies. Turning off cookies and location tracking prevents you from being at risk of your information being stored and tracked.