ABSTRACT
What are cookies and what are Web bugs? Cookies are not the kind of cookies that we find in the grocery
store and love to eat. Rather, cookies found on the World Wide Web are small unique text files created by
a Web site and sent to your computer’s hard drive. Cookie files record your mouse-clicking choices each
time you get on the Internet. After you type in a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), your browser contacts
that server and requests the specific Web site to be displayed on your monitor. The browser searches your
hard drive to see if you already have a cookie file from the site. If you have previously visited this site, the
unique identifier code, previously recorded in your cookie file, is identified and your browser will transfer
the cookie file contents back to that site. Now the server has a history file of actually what you selected
when you previously visited that site. You can readily see this because your previous selections are
highlighted on your screen. If this is the first time you have visited this particular site, then an ID is
assigned to you and this initial cookie file is saved on your hard drive.
