How did this innocent creature, the Web Cookie, then become the bone of contention in the battle for 'privacy', the new slogan that has acquired an ideological connotation like phrases such as 'human rights', 'freedom from oppression', and 'democracy'? He called it a 'magic cookie', perhaps reflecting the anticipation with which people opened their fortune cookies. He figured out that keeping user data in the user's Web browser was a better way than storing it, for example, on the e-commerce site which is trying to sell things to a user. That apparently was the work of the American computer programmer Lou Montulli, who in 1992, while at the University of Kansas and later Netscape, was busy creating the first Web browser.
We can see that the perception of a cookie as merely a sweet snack had already subtly changed to a sweet and tempting snack with a secret message inside it.īut how did the little cookie make the leap from there to a mysterious tool in something as complicated as computer science? Wikipedia tells us that even today one single manufacturer, Wonton Food Inc in Brooklyn, New York, makes over 4.5 million fortune cookies per day. I understand that the fortune cookie originated in California in the 19th century and was mainly created and popularised by Chinese and Japanese immigrants there.Īnd I understand that a fortune cookie was something you eagerly looked forward to whenever you bought Chinese food there.
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The fortune cookie also was a sweet-tasting look-alike of our ancient Persian-origin cookie, but with a difference: Crack it open and you will get a piece of paper with cheerful messages like, 'A smile is your passport into the hearts of others' or 'Today, go out and create the peacefulness you desire', or even 'If you have something good in your life, don't let it go'.
How come this sweet-tasting snack came to have such mysterious overtones? For this, we have to look past the ordinary little cookie and cast an eye on the fortune cookie. I believe that by the 14th century it had gained immense popularity among both the common man and royalty there.
How did the word 'cookies', which through history has meant a small baked sweet-tasting snack, suddenly become a key element of the Internet world, the subject of much legislation and law-making, and an item of combat between proponents of 'privacy' and pursuers of website revenues?Ī wee bit of research tells us that the sweet little snack originated in the seventh century in Persia and found its way to Europe when the Ottoman Empire extended its conquests there. Up comes a pop-up which thrusts itself in my face and screams loudly: 'Click yes to say you will accept cookies from us!' And my intuitive response is to click the browser shut as my mother's diktat flashes in my memory. I can't help remembering my dear long-gone mother each time I get adventurous and visit a Web site which I have never been to.
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