Cookies can track your Web activities.

[Bob Gould]

Cookie: a data file written to your hard drive by a Web server that identifies you to a site.

* Helps a Web site "remember" who you are and set preferences accordingly when you return.

* Eliminates the need to repeatedly fill out order forms or re-register on Web sites.

* Allows Web sites or advertising companies to track your Web surfing behavior or patterns.

It's nice to be recognized. On the Web, sites can greet you like an old friend thanks to cookies. Beginning with Navigator 3.0 and Internet Explorer 3.0, browsers have worked with Web sites to record these small bits of identifying information on your hard drive, which the sites can use to track your activities and recognize you when you return. Cookies are now ubiquitous on the Web, but users, businesses, and consumer groups debate the nature of these tiny files: For some, they promise a more user-friendly Web; for others, they pose a privacy threat.

There is lots more to this story. Find out what the different kinds of cookies are and more click here to read the rest of the story.

[Gus]

I see your message is rather dated 02/05? If you are still reading here's some pertinent and helpful info regarding cookies. You can stop most cookies before they download with a powerful and free download: spywareblaster.com. It will stop almost all cookies dead in thier tracks. Secondly, you see the little icons moving around above the message board here? Don't touch them. They are cookies.

[Bob Gould]

What in the world are you talking about? The only cooike this board puts on any computer is the one that keeps a person logged in.

[missviv2]

Obviously Gus has no idea what a cookie really is if he thinks an emoticon is a cookie. Thanks for the info Bob.