Most cookies, like the ones used by Google, Yahoo, and
MSN are used to store personal preferences, nothing
more. These cookies make it possible to store the
preferences for that domain on your system, have the
domain access the cookie and use it to set the
preferences so you don't have to re-enter your prefered
settings. Take the settings for google.com, if you
removed the cookie for google, you will have to change
the preferences to what you want, have google store the
cookie on your system and then use it. This is the same
for the other two domains as well, not to mention
thousands more domains.
The cookies that are a threat are those that store
personally identifiable information. These cookies can
lead to identity theft. The real purpose for using an
antispyware application is to help prevent this from
happening.
Most tracking cookies are third-party in nature, meaning
they are from another host domain than the one you are
visiting. Usually these cookies are from advertisers the
web site's owner(s) have sold space on their pages for
advertising purposes. This is how many of these sites
recoup the money they are spending developing and running
the site. The thing about these type of cookies is,
unless they contain personally identifiable information,
they only can dislose your surfing habits to the
advertiser who stored the cookie on your system. One big
note is that only the host domain that stored the cookie
on your system can read it. However, you will hear
things to the contrary, just don't buy into this
rubbish. The way the cookie is stored tells your web
browser who stored it, hence who has access to read it.
Some security flaws regarding cookies might have existed
in the past, but new browsers have patched these security
flaws. This means that the cookie can only be read by
the host domain that stored it on your system, as I said
earlier.
Alan
