Cookies are small files which a web site wants to put on your hard drive. They identify you to a web site server. There are great long explanations from the sites which want to do this telling you how they:

	Personalize your experience
	Allow the visited site to better serve you
	Can only be read by the site which put them there
	Make for really good Karma

The bottom line is; They make really good Karma for the site placing them on your hard drive, but not necessarily for you. At the very best Cookies are a way around intelligent programming by the web site creators and, at worst, lead to all sorts of abuse possibilities.

The story they'll give you about cookies being only readable by the site which put them there is malarkey, pure and simple. The name of the cookie has to be known by the site which put it there for it even to begin to work, thus the name is transferable. The numerous sleaze outfits who buy and sell information about you can sell the names of cookies from one site to validate you to their whims on another site, even if you refuse to sign up or give any personal information to the next site you visit. People sell that stuff because it hasn't been made illegal yet. And we all know how scrupulous marketing types are, even if it does become illegal.

Our recommendation is to simply turn off cookies in your web browser. The details about how to do this will be found in the Help section of your particular browser. If the site refuses to let you proceed without them, then we recommend simply moving on to some other vendor's site who isn't so arrogant. Such sites may simply have incompetent programmers, but why take the chance?

And even if they weren't a danger, the simple fact that a site, no matter how honest, is intruding on your computer, if not your privacy, by demanding access to your hard drive. Remember, you are the guest at their site, not an extension of their marketing department. Why allow anyone access to your computer, even for a few lousy bytes, to satisfy their needs and not necessarily yours? They bought their computer, you bought yours. Let them store whatever they want on theirs and leave yours alone.

11-9-01 While we have always advocated turning off cookies from any site unless you are absolutely certain that you trust them, we would also encourage you to read the latest Internet Explorer security bulletin from Microsoft where they have confirmed vulnerabilities. Click here to read their analysis. Our opinion is, and always has been, to simply turn off cookies and visit another web site if the one you are viewing insists on using cookies to function.

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This page last updated on 07/21/04