Classifying browser cookies for increased user control

[Amaroq_Starwind]

So I had an idea the other night about using heuristics, pattern matching, semi-supervised machine learning, and other such stuff in order to identify and categorize different web browser cookies by their function, purpose, access permissions, and other such properties, and thereby granting the user increased control over; what cookies are kept temporarily, which ones are kept permanently, which ones are blocked immediately, which websites and domains can access which cookies, and which ones need to be encrypted. This can also be extended with an API, signing mechanism and/or validation process so that site developers can categorize their cookies in advance, while uncategorized cookies or those which have been miscategorized (either on purpose or on accident) can still be identified through all of the detection mechanisms or manually by the user. Simply put, there are some types of cookies you want, and there are some types of cookies you don't.

I will try to elaborate more on these different concepts later.

[exile360]

I'm far less concerned about browser cookies and much more concerned about the ways modern trackers are actually tracking web activity these days such as fingerprinting and more persistent data they drop on users' systems that aren't governed by the settings and tools that are used to manage cookies.  For more info you can check out this article and even test your own browser(s) and find out more info here.  Just FYI, with my current setup, using my main browser (IE11), it blocked everything (I had it block the cookies when prompted as this is my typical behavior for most sites and I have it set up so that IE always asks when a site tries to save cookies on my system and my default response is 'always block' unless it's a site I plan to log into/create an account for or have some other use for cookies for):

Test	Result
Is your browser blocking tracking ads?	✓ yes
Is your browser blocking invisible trackers?	✓ yes
Does your blocker stop trackers that are included in the so-called “acceptable ads” whitelist?	✓ yes
Does your browser unblock 3rd parties that promise to honor Do Not Track?	✗ no