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Cookies are
ok in moderation just like any other sugary sweets. Oh
cookies in the computer? Well, yeah, they can be dangerous
depending on what slot you shove them into. Ok, I'll get
serious. ;-)
What are
cookies? Are cookies dangerous? Can cookies harm my
computer?
The short
answer to the last two questions is simply "no." Here is
what is in my "jweather.com" cookie on my computer right
now:
_utma
23488289.50454541.1262467263.1262467263.1262467263.1
jweather.com/
1088
1840755456
30198164
2090130352
30051313
*
__utmz
23488289.1262467263.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none)
jweather.com/
1088
948802304
30088026
2090130352
30051313
*
Doesn't
really look like much, does it? That's because all it is, is
a plain ol' text file. No, really. It's just a text file. If
you look for cookies on your computer you'll see that they
end in .txt and they open in Notepad. That's all Cookies
are. No scripting, no plug-ins, nothing executable, just
plain ol' text. Granted, we may have no idea what all the
numbers mean, but to the website it belongs to, they know
exactly what it means. All it's doing is telling the counter
at the very bottom of my home page how many times someone
has been to my site. No passwords, no email addresses, no
anything that can tell me who you are, or anything about
your computer other than that the numbers and letters
here can simply say "this computer has never been here
before" or it can say the opposite, that "this computer has
been here X number of times." Does that really sound scary?
Ok, so I'll
admit that in the past (the very distant past) cookies have
stored information that could have compromised your privacy
in some way (not from my site, just some other sites in
general.) But here's the kicker--a cookie can NOT store
anything that you don't manually enter in yourself. Meaning,
if you go to Bill and Ted's Excellent Website and you enter
in your email address, then that site can store your email
address in their cookie. Then when you go back to their
site, they'll say "Welcome back, <insert username here>"
which is how, for example, if you have a Yahoo account and
you go to the Yahoo page that it always has your name on the
page if you've logged into it before on that particular PC.
So I will say that in the past, cookies, although they
haven't been "bad," some really did store information that
they shouldn't have. For the most part, none do anymore.
For those of
you who actually do any kind of shopping online or order
different parts for things, you've, no doubt, used a
"shopping cart" that stores everything you order until the
very end when you "check out." Well, you have to have
Cookies enabled so that each page you go to on that site can
identify your computer with the unique number it gives you
so it will know what is in your cart. That's another thing
cookies do. Again, pretty harmless.
Now as far as
"tracking cookies" go, there are companies such as "DoubleClick"
that can put a cookie on your computer as long as the site
you go to pays them to do so. So if you go to Bill and Ted's
Excellent Website and they bought a "who visits my website"
script from DoubleClick, then yes, they can find out all the
other website's you've gone to that also subscribe to
DoubleClick. If that bothers you as far as "an invasion of
privacy" then consider this--does it also bother you that if
you use a "membership" card at a warehouse store, or a
"reward card" or "customer loyalty card" from a grocery
store that they know every single item you ever purchased
using their card? It's kinda like the same thing... only the
computer version (meaning, the "cookie") knows A LOT LESS
about you than your reward card does. ;-)
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