Python: Cookie gets changed when hit comes from a referrer

Question

# initialize cookie and retrieve cookie from clients browser
cookie = cookies.SimpleCookie( os.environ.get('HTTP_COOKIE') )

if cookie.get('ID') is not None:
 cookieID = cookie['ID'].value
else:
 cookieID = random.randrange(0, 9999)
 cookie['ID'] = cookieID
 cookie['ID']['path'] = '/'
 print( cookie )

I use this code to retrive or set a cookie to the visitor's browser if present and identify him by it.

All work well except the situation where the user visits my webpage by clicking a backlink on another webpage.

Then for some reason the cookieID changes to another value thus a new entry appears into the database when insert happens.

What can I do about that?

Comments

You are aware that using cookies to track a user who doesn't want to be  tracked won't work, because he'll just tell his browser to not use cookies, aren't you.

If a user doesn't want to be tracked, you can't track them. The user controls all the data their machine sends to you. This means that they can manipulate it. Nothing you can do  will prevent this.

Answer 1

The most likely possibility is that the domain doesn't match. For example, the cookie is set for the domain www.foo.com, and the other webpage is linking to foo.com. Another possibility is that the cookie is expiring because the browser session was terminated, not because of anything to do with the other webpage.

Or it could simply be a bug or unusual setting in whatever browser you're using to test it.

Comments

I think this is the problem but i am not sure entirely how you mean. Can you please explain it a bit more?

Shall i change cookie['ID']['path'] = '/' to something else so that never happens?