As part of its ongoing commitment to consumer privacy, Microsoft has announced a technical beta of new privacy-enhancing cookie management features for Internet Explorer 5.5. To learn more about the use of cookies on the Internet and how Microsoft's new cookie-management features will benefit consumers, PressPass spoke with Richard Purcell, Microsoft's director of corporate privacy. A good example is a site that remembers your zip code to give you personalized weather information based on where you live. Cookies can also be placed on a machine by Web advertisers to determine when that machine is used to view a particular advertisement.
Cookies are inherently neither good nor bad.
They can serve many useful purposes and are a key component to the way the Web functions. Cookies can save time. For instance, if a customer personalizes pages, or registers for products or services, a cookie helps the Web site remember who they are. The next time the visitor returns, the site knows to show them the information they requested. The Internet is free today, in part because the business model of the Web is an advertising model that helps many Web sites survive through the use of third-party advertising services.