With the recent push for data privacy, the differences of cookie durations across multiple platforms have become a topic of interest. These differences dramatically influence user experience and pose serious environmental questions. Moreover, stakeholders are paying more attention to cookie durations across websites. These timeframes vary widely, from as little as 25 days to as long as 2,730 days.
This duration is hugely variable for sites of all sizes, with some set as low as 25 days and others reaching 730 days into the future. For applications, it’s even worse—the time increases significantly to 1,825 days. Device storage stores cookies for 366 days, local storage for 274 days. We find that specific prefixes are particularly impactful in lengthening the lifetime of cookies. For instance, cookies set with the prefixes IABTCF_ and FCCDCF persist for 390 days, the same as cookies prefixed with amp-store.
The Implications of Cookie Durations
The difference in cookie durations presents interesting questions about how data is being managed and about user consent. Users will be more conscious than ever about their digital footprints. Prolonged persistence of cookies can result in significant privacy harms. An expert in sustainable strategic development, Hassan Chouaouta, explains that “this is equivalent to 811 times the weight of the Eiffel Tower—enough to fill 2,780 Olympic swimming pools with compacted waste.”
Chouaouta’s lesson serves as a reminder that the environmental repercussions of our digital waste reflect broader issues in physical waste management. In plenty of ways, the digital frontier is reflecting the same challenges that have hamstrung the real world, especially in places such as the Sahara. This intersection of data privacy and environmental sustainability presents an important intersection for policymakers and developers of technology.
Moreover, anthropologist Mustapha Naimi emphasizes that “plastic waste harms the Saharan environment as it contaminates the land, pasture, rivers and nomadic areas.” This declaration highlights the important and emerging need for digital stewardship to go hand-in-hand with work to remediate real world, physical e-waste.
Awareness Campaigns and Community Engagement
Community efforts to educate residents about the importance of protecting our land and water resources are increasingly hitting the ground. Mohamed Oujaa, leader of The Sand Pigeons group, recently stated that the cleanup mission they organized is “just the first in a series of campaigns to clean up the desert.” These efforts underscore the need for more community engagement to solve the wider environmental crisis, which has been worsened by littering and improper waste disposal.
In tandem with these clean-up efforts, educational campaigns can play a critical role in informing the public about both environmental degradation and data privacy. Ronald Le Floch, a New York-based French photographer, remarked on the significance of these efforts: “to show that it’s important to take care of this type of environment.” His outlook demonstrates the increasing awareness that environmental stewardship can no longer be confined to the tangible world, but needs to be addressed in the digital realm.
The Broader Context
Just like the problems attached to cookie durations and environmental justice, these concerns are very much in line with societal and community change. Professor Mohammed Mahdi notes that “we give very little to nomadic herders, and a good number have gone bankrupt and given up.” This strong statement focuses on the integration of social equity and environmental sustainability. The stakes could not be higher. Failure to address our digitally connected and physically built environments could have irreversible repercussions economically, socially, and culturally.
As stakeholders from various sectors come together to address these issues, it becomes increasingly clear that a multidisciplinary approach is necessary. That means a continued partnership among environmentalists, tech industries, policymakers and communities.