Say no to cookies from strangers

Mothers' advice from 50 years ago reappears

I can’t help remembering my dear long-gone mother each time I get adventurous and visit a website which I have never been to. 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.

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