| A cookie is a small file,
normally less than 1k, that a web site, accessed by you, puts onto your hard disk drive so
that the depositing site can remember something about you when you access that site, or in
some cases other sites, at a later time. Typically, a cookie records your preferences when using a particular web
site. Using the internet's HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), each request that you make
for a web page is independent of every other request. For this reason, the web page server
(the computer system where the requested information is stored) has no memory of pages
that it has previously sent to a user or anything about their previous visits, if any,
without the utilization of cookie technology.
The cookie technology utilized by this web
site may deposit a cookie that normally expires within 6 months, so that there should be
little concern about storing a lot of outdated and unnecessary information.
You can view the cookies that have been
stored on your hard disk drive, although the content stored in each cookie may not make
much sense. The location of the cookies depends on the browser. Internet Explorer stores
cookies as separate files in a Windows folder named "\Cookies." Netscape stores
cookies in a single "cookies.txt" file; Opera, in a single
"cookies.dat" file.
Cookies are most commonly used to alternate
the advertising that a web site may present for your viewing, so that the web site does
not keep sending the same advertising again and again as you receive a succession of
requested pages. Cookies can also be used to customize requested pages based on your
browser type, video characteristics, or other information that you may have provided to
that web site. Web users must agree, in their browser setup or manually, depending on
their system settings, to let cookies be saved for them on their hard disk drive.
As a general rule, cookies help web sites
to serve their users better and more quickly. On all of our web sites and web pages, there
is no personally identifiable information conveyed in a cookie. There is nothing
transmitted to which you have not consented, and there is never any information externally
aggregated or exchanged.
Cookies do not read your hard drive and
send your life story to the CIA. A cookie, however, can be used to gather more information
than would be generally possible without utilizing them. Keep in mind, you control the
information and the acceptance of cookies. |
