A cookie is a text file that a website places on YOUR hard drive that helps them personalize your experience in their site or permits faster loading on subsequent revisits. In effect, the cookie permits the website to track where you have been in the site and what you have read and purchased. Some websites then sell this information to marketers. One website cannot, however, read another's cookies. In other words, websites are not reading the information on your hard drive, only the information you provided that was added to their own cookie.
Cookies can be very useful and helpful to the Internet user.
They allow you to enter a site and save your password on your hard drive - so you don't have to log back in every time you return to the site. Since the merchant can identify you via the cookie you may not be required to re-enter credit card or personal information. Credit card information is generally not contained in the cookie, only the identifying information that permits the merchant to locate your credit card information in their database. If you follow the directions below, your browser will inform you every time a cookie is being sent to you and you will have the option to accept it or reject it. Note, however, that cookies are a frequently used tool and warnings will pop up fairly regularly even if you are with the same site and have already rejected their cookie.