tomlukeywood: > as the idea of data that identifys that you visted a website(as you > got a cookie from that site) being stored on your computer while > browsing seems like it could easly give away your privacy > > how can you be sure what websites are acsessing your cookies?
Indeed there are serious privacy concerns surrounding cookies, which is why I would suggest configuring your browser to not accept them except when you need to (e.g. login, use a shopping cart etc.) Only the website (or the domain actually) can see its own cookies, although the finer details on that are complicated. There are tricks used by services such as Google Analytics for transferring cookies between websites, use of third-party cookies and use of HTTP referer headers to monitor what users do on many websites on the internet (apparently approximately half of the most popular websites use Google Analytics these days). Using your web browser in private browsing mode should delete your cookies each time you restart your browser. Andrew
