What's a Cookie?

Some Web sites store information in a small text file, called a "cookie," on your hard disk.

Cookies contain information about you and your preferences. For example, if you inquire about a flight schedule at an airline's Web site, the site might create a cookie that contains your itinerary. Or it might only contain a record of which pages within the site you visited, to help the site customize the view for you the next time you visit.

Only the information that you provide, or the choices you make while visiting a Web site, can be stored in a cookie. For example, the site cannot determine your e-mail name unless you choose to type it. Allowing a Web site to create a cookie does not give that or any other site access to the rest of your computer, and only the site that created the cookie can read it.

Netscape and Internet Explorer are set up to allow the creation of cookies; however, you can specify that you be prompted before a site puts a cookie on your hard disk, so you can choose to allow or disallow the cookie; or you can prevent Netscape or Internet Explorer from accepting any cookies.

Source: Microsoft Internet Explorer Help