| The term "cookie" is the name given to a small file of
information (normally less than 1k) that a web site, accessed by you
the visitor, places 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, the 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 our web sites deposit a cookie
that normally expires within 6 months, so that there should be
little concern about collecting and storing outdated and unnecessary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 your browser. Internet
Explorer stores cookies as separate files in a Windows folder named
"\Cookies." Netscape stores all cookies in a single "cookies.txt"
file. Opera stores them in a single "cookies.dat" file.
Cookies are most commonly used to alternate advertising content
sent to your screen, so that you do not view the same ads again and
again as you receive a succession of requested web 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 allow
cookies be saved on their hard disk drive.
As a general rule, cookies help web site operators serve their
users better and more quickly. On all of the web pages on this web
site there is no personally identifiable information conveyed in
either direction, either sent or received and stored, 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
about a user than would be generally possible without their use,
generally about use patterns. Keep in mind, you control the
information and the acceptance of cookies.
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