Understanding the Use of Cookies in Online Shopping and Banner Advertisements

Computer Networks
Solution

1. A). Online shopping has recently evolved due to advanced technology. So, to make the interaction
with the customer there must be a better understanding of what the customer need and behaviors to be
specific. This has been made possible by use of cookies to collect information and behaviors on a certain
website and all these provides a good background and know of what to display on the webpage and what
not to display (Braun, Münz, and Carle, 2010).
The diagram shows how cookies are used in an online shopping site in six different steps:
Step 1
The client wants to retrieve some information about toys from the besttoys.com website, so GET is used
because the client want to retrieve or get something (Howard, 2008.). The besttoys.com web server loads
the information as per the client request and a customer file is saved in the webserver with an ID 12343 to
identify that specific client which is a shopping cart where list of what client wants to shop is stored.
Step 2:
The server responds to the client request with the web page having different types of toys. At the same
time, a vendor file is created and in the client browser with the same ID 12343 as the customer file saved
in the web server of the besttoys.com and keeps on updating with client information. Also a cookie is set
which will be used to track the client (Huang, 2010). Whenever the client requests for something from
that specific website, it would be fast to log in. That cookie may last forever provided it is not destroyed.
Step 3
The web page the client is displayed contains different toys’ images which may act like links.The client
clicks an image of a certain toy on that web page, that image acts as a link to retrieval of more
information concerning that image which in turn is sent a request to the server where that request is send
together with the cookie: 12343.

Step 4
After the server receives the request from the client, it displays back the page containing all the
information about the price of the image toy the client clicked. Then, that information is updated in the
customer file which is saved in the web server side (Lund et al., 2010). The cookie which was sent
together with the request is the one that helps the web server to track that specific client file from their
server and then is updated until the customer or client finishes to shop.
Step 5
Then, the customer requests from the same site information about the payment of the toy clicked, the
same thing happens, the request is sent together with the cookie: 12343, thus helping the server in
updating the file for that specific client.
Step 6
All through the cookie has been getting information about the client, so the request of the client about the
payment, is responded efficiently where an order confirmation web page is displayed on the client
browser according to what the client has selected from the webpage.
1. B). The banner advert is not hosted at the web server of the current website that it is being advertised
from. Deakin University is displaying an advert of a product in its website where it is paid by the
advertising company in accordance with the number of clicks of that advert which is linked to the
manufacturers’ web server.
The advertising company has to keep tracks of the number of clicks or visitors to the manufacturer’s
website using that banner advert, so application of cookies is a preferred option to track the visitors.