Ethical issues
Unit 27 Web Server Scripting
Extended Diploma in ICT
Criteria P6
• P6 explain the issues surrounding web server scripting
• We will look at ethical issues
• Ethics – concerned with right and wrong behaviour
• What can you do with web server scripting that could be
classed as unethical?
Cookies
• a small piece of data sent from a website
and stored in a user's web browser
• the same website can retrieve the data stored
in the cookie
• Cookie data can be used for
• Session data
• Tracking visits to the web site
• Recording browsing history
Third party cookies
• Third party cookies are those set by other
web sites appearing on the selected web site,
such as adverts
• Advertising companies use third-party
cookies to track a user across multiple sites
and build a picture of their browsing history
• This allows the advertising company to target
advertisements
• These cookies raise concerns about privacy
EU directive
• the consumer must give his or her consent
before cookies or any other form of data is
stored in their browser
Local data storage
• Web applications can store data locally using
HTML5
• This could be useful content needed to let the
application run efficiently and offline.
• It could also be bad content used to track
users without their knowledge or consent.
• For instance, local storage could be used to
back up cookies so that the data is not
cleared if the cookies are cleared
Fake web statistics
• Advertising revenue for a web page is
determined by the number of “page views”
• These are counted by small bits of javascript
• You can add additional code to execute the
javascript multiple times
• Auto refresh programs can refresh a web site
thousands of times in a day
• They can use proxy servers to hide their IP
address