FODREAMS.COM: Cookies: What are they?

Cookies: What are they?

Disclaimer: We do not propose to have all the answers nor represent ourselves as legal advisors. Any information provide in the Field of Dreams site is meant to assist our growing businesses, not to place ourselves in legal battle. Enter at your own risk! All comments are welcome. Please address questions and comments to Deb Nyberg, Webmistress .

What exactly is a cookie?

Are they fattening? Do they have chocolate chips and nuts? Did your mother bake them?

The answer is no. Perhaps you have heard the term "magic cookies". It was originated when a mischievous programmer wrote a program called "magic cookie" which persisted in saying "me want cookie" several times during user sessions. If the user didn't answer "cookie" the program did minor damage to the user's work. Internet cookies, which are not magic and not baked by your mother, have been around for some time now but the public was unaware of them. These cookies, made on the Internet, are often thought of as intrusive and a way for unscrupulous people to get personal information about you such as your credit card number. Magic cookies - Internet cookies - no wonder there is controversy surrounding them.

What are the facts?

A cookie is information that is sent to your browser (for example: Netscape or MSIE) from a site on the Internet that you are visiting. This information is accepted by your browser, checked for length (no more than 4000, most often only a few characters), expiration date, path (for example http://www.greatsite.com/fun), and domain (for example http://www.greatsite.com) then saves it on your PC in a file named "cookies.txt".

When you click on a link to a site you want to visit, your browser checks the domain (URL) of the link against the cookie file. If it finds a cookie that matches the domain and path of the site you want to visit, it will send the cookie information back to the site along with your request for the page.

Cookies can not contain viruses or program code to run a program on your PC. They cannot search your PC to get data personal information, get your email address or steal sensitive information about you and put it into the cookie file.

Cookies are used primarily to save session information between the times you visit the same site. They reside on your PC either until they expire or if they have no expiration date, until you end your browsing session.

What does a cookie mean to you?

Cookies cannot be used to track your visits from one site to another, although a cookie can be used to track what pages you visit on a particular site. This tracking can be easily done without using cookies; using them makes the tracking information more consistent.

It's true, a cookie can contain your email address or personal information. If you visit a site that asks for your email address (in a form) it could send a cookie which contains your email address to your browser. Your email address or any other personal information you entered into the form would then be sent back to that same site every time you visit it.

Cookies can save a 'flag' that say you already entered your password and were validated -- so you don't have to enter your password for every page you access in a given session or even for future sessions. Cookies can save information so that facts or news that you previously requested from a service is sent to you using your personal profile. If you are "buying on the web" (and we hope you do), shopping cart programs use cookies to hold the products you are ordering until you submit your order.

What about your privacy?

Cookies cannot be used to find out the identity of any visitor and cannot be used to collect any more information than is available to the server that you are using to browse the Internet. Such information can include your "logon" information and the name of your online service or ISP and browser.

Cookies are designed so that NO other site
can access the information sent from another site.

Can another domain find out what is in a cookie? This is the question that many people think of when the issues of privacy and cookies are brought to their attention. No matter how many sites you've visited or how many cookies you've accepted, information contained in the cookies can NOT be given to a server from another domain.

It is very easy to delete cookies from your PC. Just make sure your browser is not running and delete the file called cookies.txt.

How can you control cookies?

There is no way to stop them, however, you can restrict cookies:

With Version 3.0 or greater of Netscape

Go to the Options Menu
Select the Network Preferences
Select the Protocols tab
Check the box labeled "Accepting a Cookie"

With Version 3.0 or greater of MSIE

Go the View Menu
Select Options
Select the Advanced tab
Check the box labeled "Warn before accepting cookies"

With either browser, you will get an alert box telling you that a server is trying to set a cookie at your browser. It will tell you what the cookie value is and how long it will last before your browser deletes it.

Finally, you can get a copy of ZDNet's CookieMaster, which allows you to monitor cookie activity.

You've done all that and now are aware that you are getting cookies from web sites that you have not visited. What is going on here? Look no further than the top of the page you are visiting. See that banner? It's the culprit. Most often banners are being sent to the site you are visiting (http://www.greatsite.com) from another site (http:www.advertising.com). These advertisers are managing the presentation of their ads so that you don't always see the same banner over and over. Cookies make that possible.

by Shari Rosefelt, one of three directors of Buy it on the Web™ and the webmaster and content developer of The ShoppingPlace