Contact Baughan and Company, www.rocksolidsite.com
|
Place an order now |
Cookie FAQCookies? You mean they ain't just chocolate chip? A cookie is a way that web sites have to store and retrieve information about you. Well, that's a bit misleading. It's a way they track this particular interaction between your browser and that site. |
|
A cookie is a text file which may be kept momentarily in memory and then lost, or it may be saved by the browser onto your hard disk, for re-use later. It contains the Web domain you are visiting, an expiration date when the cookie will be deleted from your system, and (especially on a multi-user system) your user name, so that it will only be used when it is you who is logged on. What else? If you are in a user group, the cookie may contain your user name and password, so that you can rejoin the topic instantly. It may indicate that your subscription is paid, and allow you special access. For a shopping cart Web site, it may contain the date of your visit, a customer number and transaction number. That way, if you go off-line or otherwise get out of sequence, then you can go back in and pick up the same transaction right where you left off (the transaction data itself is logged on the Web site). So, when you reach the end of the sale, you will find in your shopping cart only those items which you have actually purchased. Basically, then, a cookie contains information which you have already provided to the Web site and/or information about your visit to the Web site -- it does not access your private files. Indeed, it cannot. Text files are not executable, so a cookie cannot contain viruses or programs. Also, it cannot be used to access information on your own system that you may consider sensitive... such as your e-mail address or bank balance or account number. |
However, if you previously gave your e-mail address or other info, then the cookie could be used to point their system to that file on the Web site's system. If you did not provide any personal information -- name, address, etc -- then it simply advises the site that you've been there before. Cookies can be enabled or disabled as a setting within your browser. If you have a fire wall or other filtering software, that may also interfere with the proper operation of cookies. A cookie may also be used to track the kind of file that you were inspecting. That way, if the site is offering a special on widgets this week -- and you were looking at widgets the last time you were here -- then the site could present the special only to you, and not to someone who did not accept cookies, or who didn't want widgets. By using cookies to help determine what products/services are most popular, the site owners can emphasize those things in later site upgrades. Can't they get this information with simple page "hit" counters? Yes, but a hit counter doesn't say if the same person has been back three times. A cookie can. This way, a fanatical visitor would not be misunderstood to be, say, 1,000 separate visitors. ...Any real problems? Yeah...cookies can make you fat! :-) |
|
|
|