More on cookies

[Thomas Dowling]

Last week, I posted a note observing that a number of library pages
recently were trying to give me cookies, and asking why people were doing
this?

The most frequent response I got was the question "What's a cookie?"  It is
a small file generated by a web server and stored in the browser's file
space (i.e. some server "out there" saves a file on your hard drive); the
server can then read this file at some later time--minutes, hours, or years
later if you haven't deleted the file.  There have been some paranoid
suspicions that cookies could be used to report extensive information on
the contents of your hard drive, but to my knowledge this is impossible
since the server can only retrieve cookie information originally recorded
by itself or another server in the same domain.  Nonetheless, many users
feel that a device which at minimum tracks when you last visited a site,
and possibly what you viewed, represents an intrusion into the usually
anonymous nature of surfing the web.

That said, I still don't know what sites are using cookies for.  One post
mentioned that the Apache server *can* be set to issue a cookie on your
first hit, in order to track how long you stay at the site.  I don't find
this a very compelling reason and don't believe it represents all the sites
I've seen using cookies.

I'm afraid I haven't been keeping track of which sites I've encountered
using cookies, but I know one is ALA.  The home page does not offer a
cookie, but any link from the home page does.  If you decline to accept the
cookie, it will offer it four more times.  (Yes, they are using Apache,
fwiw.)

Both Netscape 3.0 and MSIE 3.0 have options to notify you when you're being
offered a cookie (Netscape also tells you what the contents of the cookie
are).  Turning that option on has proven very informative to me; I had no
idea cookies were as widespread as they are.

The official (if that word applies) cookie specification is at
<URL:http://home.netscape.com/newsref/std/cookie_spec.html>

Thomas Dowling                    \ tdowling at ohiolink.edu
Asst. Director, Client/Server Apps.\    614/728-3600 x326
OhioLINK                            \    FAX 614/728-3610