Number 261 - February 2005

Computer Cookies: What They Are, What They Do
By Jim Thornton (jthorn@adelphia.net) November 2004, The Outer Edge
Internet cookies are simply a marketing tool of the Web site's manager and are small text files, typically 1 KB in size, that the manager places on your computer's hard drive when you visit the site. All computers using Microsoft Internet Explorer permanently store their cookies in the computer's cookie folder (C:\Windows\Cookies; for XP users, the cookie folder is in a different location--C:\Documents and Settings\Network Service\Cookies). Take a look at that folder and see how many cookies are there. Are you surprised by the quantity? Do you have 300 files? If yes, then you have the maximum number of cookies that Windows allows to be stored, and newer cookies automatically replace the older ones. Cookies are harmless by nature as they are neither executable files nor contain viruses.    As marketing tools, the stored cookies tell the Web site that you are a returning visitor while the lack of a cookie says that you are a first-time visitor. The cookie can even identify to the site which Web pages you previously visited For example, let's assume that you visited Amazon.com and were searching for mystery novels. Amazon places a cookie on your computer noting that you are interested in mysteries. The next time you visit their site, it reads the stored cookie and displays the current mystery novels for sale with the intent to entice you to buy those novels while you're still online. Some cookies are designed to collect personal data as an aid to provide a quick and personalized logon to a site as Amazon does if you are a frequent customer.    Notice when you look at the cookie's filename you can easily see which Web site it came from. A typical filename would be johndoe@amazon(1).txt where johndoe is your name, Amazon is the Web site, (1) is the number of the cookies from that site, and txt indicates that it is a text file.    Perhaps you don't want any cookies placed on your computer. You can start by deleting all cookie files with the file extension of txt located in your cookies folder. Now, the downside of doing this is that whenever you revisit a Web site you deleted a cookie for, that Web site will think that you are a new visitor, and you will need to reset your preferences for that site.    An easier way would be to selectively delete the cookies that you don't want to keep or revisit.    Now, let's stop cookies from being placed on your computer without your permission. There are several freeware, shareware, and commercial software programs that will do this. But since that same feature is built into Internet Explorer, let's use that one. With this feature activated, every time that a cookie is sent to your computer, a small pop-up window will appear asking if you want to accept or block the cookie. In addition, you can	choose to accept or block all future cookies from that Web site without the pop-up window reappearing. Certain firewall-like software and hardware routers may also restrict cookies.    The method of activating this feature varies slightly in the different versions of Internet Explorer. I use Internet Explorer version 6.0 and have it configured to ask what to do each time a cookie from a new site is sent. Here's how to activate this feature:    (1) open or launch Internet Explorer,    (2) on the Toolbar, left-click on Tools,    (3) on the dropdown menu, click on Internet Options,    (4) click on the Privacy tab,    (5) in the Settings area, click on Advanced and a new small window opens,    (6) in the Cookies area, check Override Automatic Cookie Handling,    (7) then check how you want to handle first- and third-party cookies (first-party cookies are cookies coming directly from the site that you are visiting while third-party cookies come from unvisited sites that have an agreement with the first-party sites to send their cookies along with the first-party cookies to your computer)--I have checked Prompt for both,    (8) in the Advanced Privacy Setting area, click OK, and    (9) on the Privacy tab window, click OK. The instructions for the earlier versions are similar.    Now some sites will allow you to enter only if you are accepting their cookies. If you have previously blocked cookies from this site and assuning now that you want to go into this site, you will need to start accepting cookies from this site. The easiest way is to    (1) open or launch Internet Explorer,    (2) on the Toolbar, left-click on Tools,    (3) on the dropdown menu, click on Internet Options,    (4) click on the Privacy tab,    (5) click on Edit and a new small window opens, on the lower window, there is a listing of all of the sites that you have visited and whether or not cookies from those sites are allowed or blocked.    (6) highlight the Web site that you want to change,    (7) click on Remove, and    (8) on the Per Site Privacy Actions, click OK, and    (9) on the Privacy tab window, click OK.    In summary, Internet cookies are similar to your favorite grocery store, which records the groceries that you purchase and then mails you discount coupons for similar products. Many other businesses use the same marketing coupon strategy to keep existing customers and to attract new ones.
Number 262 - February 2005