| 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.
The term cookie derives from UNIX
program objects called "magic cookies". These are digital tokens that
are attached to a user or program and that change depending on the
areas entered by the user or the program selected by that user.
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.
There are two kinds
of cookies: Session Cookies and Persistent Cookies.
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The "session
cookie", also called a transient cookie is a type of cookie that
is erased when the user closes the active web browser. The
session cookie is stored in temporary memory and is not retained
after the browser is closed. Session cookies do not collect
information from the user's computer. They typically store
information in the form of a session identification that does
not personally identify the website visitor or website user.
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| The second type of
cookie is the "persistent cookie", also referred to as a
permanent cookie, or a stored cookie, is a cookie that is stored
on a user’s hard drive until it expires (persistent cookies are
set with expiration dates) or until the user deletes the cookie.
Persistent cookies are used to collect identifying information
about the user, such as web surfing behavior or user preferences
for a specific website. |
We may utilize both types of cookies.
The cookie technology utilized by our websites deposits a cookie that
normally expires within six months, so that there should be little
concern about collecting and storing outdated and unnecessary
information. We never collect personally identifiable 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 the advertising content that a web site sends to your
screen, so that it does not keep sending 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. |