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The term "cookie" is the name given to a small file of information
(normally less than 1k) that a web site, accessed by you the
visitor, places onto your hard disk drive so that the depositing
site can remember something about you when you access that site, or
in some cases other sites, at a later time. The term cookie derives from UNIX
program objects called "magic
cookies". These are digital tokens that are attached to a user or
program and that change depending on the areas entered by the user or
the program selected by that user.
Typically, the cookie
records your preferences when using a particular web site. Using the
internet's HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), each request that you
make for a web page is independent of every other request. For this
reason, the web page server (the computer system where the requested
information is stored) has no memory of pages that it has previously
sent to a user or anything about their previous visits, if any,
without the utilization of cookie technology.
There are two kinds of cookies: Session
Cookies and Persistent Cookies.
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The "session cookie", also called a transient
cookie is a type of cookie that is erased when the user closes
the active web browser. The session cookie is stored in
temporary memory and is not retained after the browser is
closed. Session cookies do not collect information from the
user's computer. They typically store information in the form
of a session identification that does not personally identify
the website visitor or website user.
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| The second type of cookie is the "persistent
cookie", also referred to as a permanent cookie, or a stored
cookie, is a cookie that is stored on a user’s hard drive
until it expires (persistent cookies are set with expiration
dates) or until the user deletes the cookie. Persistent
cookies are used to collect identifying information about the
user, such as web surfing behavior or user preferences for a
specific website. |
We may utilize both types of cookies. The cookie technology
utilized by our websites deposits a cookie that normally expires
within six months, so that there should be little concern about
collecting and storing outdated and unnecessary information. We
never collect personally identifiable information.
You can view the cookies that have been stored on your hard disk
drive, although the content stored in each cookie may not make much
sense. The location of the cookies depends on your browser. Internet
Explorer stores cookies as separate files in a Windows folder named
"\Cookies." Netscape stores all cookies in a single "cookies.txt"
file. Opera stores them in a single "cookies.dat" file.
Cookies are most commonly used to alternate advertising content
sent to your screen, so that you do not view the same ads again and
again as you receive a succession of requested web pages. Cookies
can also be used to customize requested pages based on your browser
type, video characteristics, or other information that you may have
provided to that web site. Web users must agree, in their browser
setup, or manually depending on their system settings, to allow
cookies be saved on their hard disk drive.
As a general rule, cookies help web site operators serve their
users better and more quickly. On all of the web pages on this web
site there is no personally identifiable information conveyed in
either direction, either sent or received and stored, in a cookie.
There is nothing transmitted to which you have not consented, and
there is never any information externally aggregated or exchanged.
Cookies do not read your hard drive and send your life story to
the CIA. A cookie, however, can be used to gather more information
about a user than would be generally possible without their use,
generally about use patterns. Keep in mind, you control the
information and the acceptance of cookies.
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