Just to see what's happening, change your settings to deny any cookies - i.e., to ask you each time a site wants to set a cookie. You'll be amazed at how many cookies are set. Even some of the widgets that are on the side of blog posts set widgets.
At first you may want to forget it all - i.e., when you have to respond to a dozen cookie requests to get to a single page on the Internet. But don't you want to know who wants your information?
You can allow the cookies from sites you know and like, that allow you easy access when you return. You can disallow all the advertising sites, all the surreptitious sites. Wouldn't you want to know when your competitors are capturing information about your visit? Perhaps that's something to share with prospective clients.
You can allow cookies or deny them - but shouldn't it be YOUR choice?
Hi Sharon,
Thanks so much for the heads up on this.
Margaret - yes. depending on time I'll vary between systems.
Randy - you struck me as meticulous, and it's obvious this carries through to cleaning out your computer.
Lynda - it's not new news, but it needs to hit you at the right moment for you to take action.
Missy - it would be in Explorer or Firefox.
Bill - you're right. Not for everyday use, but once in a while it's fine.
Karen - that's much the response Tami and I had on a recent flight to Hawaii on Aloha Airlines. After the movie the wonderful smell came first - chocolate chip cookies! Yes, Aloha served us all warm cookies and milk. Warm chocolate chip cookies. Yum!
Kimberly - I can choose to deny cookies, allow them only for the current session, or just avoid sites that want to track me. I'm ok with sites I choose like amazon.com that will remember my password, but I'm not ok with advertisers who want to track me, or sites that don't offer me something in return for the cookie.