How will the new law on cookies affect internet browsing?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/13/new-law-cookies-affect-internet-browsing

Websites track visitors' activity, but will legal changes to users' consent make a difference to the Guardian or other sites?

We are being watched. The websites we visit, and the advertisers who promote products on those sites, are tracking our online activity, building a profile of where we go and in some cases what we do when we get there.

The computer on which this article is being written has no fewer than 2,901 tracking files (known as cookies) monitoring its online activity, from sites including Google (121 cookies), Amazon (14), the UK government (46) and dozens upon dozens of advertising networks. These track different things: some monitor which sites are visited, some track which adverts are clicked, others store and report back on preferences and favourites on different sites.

The Guardian site is no exception. Unless your browser's security settings are particularly high – and most users' aren't – the Guardian will have placed several cookies on your computer as you arrived at this article, and its advertisers will have placed a few of their own.