Cookies are rather benign little pieces of information that web servers can send to a browser. The browser can store the cookies in a file on your disk drive, then send those pieces of information back to the server along with whatever other request is being made. Some don't even know or care that they exist. This page is here to let you know a little more about them so you can have more knowledge and make your own decision.
Cookies are a Netscape creation and they maintain a good FAQ on cookies .
The Netscape site is also where you will find the Technical Specification for cookies. Cookies can be abused and some abusive sites that can be found. However, we are going to begin with describing the advantages of what cookies can do in your service to make the web a more useful tool.