PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT
How do I stop Adidas tracking me?
Q Recently, I visited the Adidas website to view some trainers. Immediately, a pop-up button appeared. It sounds stupid but I clicked it without even thinking because I was in a hurry to get on. It was only a moment afterwards that I did a mental double-take and realised that the button read ‘Accept tracking’, or something like that. I absolutely do not want Adidas (or anyone else) tracking me. I forgot the trainers and looked for a way to turn off this tracking, but I couldn’t find any further mention of it anywhere on the Adidas site. What have I done, and how do I revoke my ‘permission’ for this website to track me? I use Chrome, incidentally.
Ben Parker
A We’ve all absent-mindedly clicked things we shouldn’t, but first off, don’t worry – you haven’t done too much harm here.
On the one hand, we have to admire the honesty of Adidas: the company tells you straight that it wants to track your activities on its own website, and possibly beyond. On the other, the large pop-up and pre-selected ‘Accept Tracking’ option almost seems designed to catch people out (see screenshot 1).
However, the firm isn’t doing anything that pretty much every other large commercial website now does – which is to want to place a bunch cookies on your computer. In and of themselves, cookies are benign: they’re just little text files that sit on your PC’s drive. A cookie might hold your username for the site, say, or your email address. Their presence saves time, because you don’t have to type such information every time you log in.
The permissions pop-ups that blight many modern websites are a side effect of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), because cookies are considered personal data. So, companies feel compelled to seek your permission to use them – even though they’re pretty much essential for
