Well, Bill, I got a very quick and what I would call a 'standard' reply,
which was not very helpful. I will persevere.
Can I tell you a brief story about cookies and a good outcome (I think).
When I first signed up with my ISP some six months ago, and which forms part
of my nation's official telecommunications provider and is a trusted, most
awarded and reliable service, giving lots of good tips and hints about using
the internet, email, etc, I had started to read about the hazards of cookies
in various Microsoft newsgroup posts, KB articles and what people were
telling me. It was interesting to read some of the articles on various
topics listed in the ISP's FAQs, including one on cookies -- in short, they
said they're not necessarily as dangerous as is made out and are used, in
responsible hands such as theirs, to track usage of their webpages so that
they can tailor the information to what customers wanted. At that time, I
was in two minds about it and was curious that an ISP would say such a thing!
(my ignorance)
My default home page is the ISP's help page, which I chose for the obvious
and as it had a 'cleaner' interface, whereas their other pages had lots of
movement and were quite messy, information-wise. The only animated item on
this particular page is an advertisment for one of their other services and
it's not intrusive. One of the allowed cookies that was listed as a tracking
cookie in the Dr scan is for this ISP.
In the intervening months, I have noticed a gradual change in the
information presented until early this week, after not having used my
computer and IE for a few days, on opening IE I saw that more changes had
been made -- there was a short 'quick links' list added, and the first item
on it was a link to my free Webmail account with them, and four other items I
accessed regularly. The interface had been cleaned up further and now is
much easier to see and use. As you can probably imagine, my immediate
thought was they must know my browsing habits...! Yes, I am aware that
websites get changed frequently and that I am not the only one accessing
those links frequently; that's what the stats counters are for. But, for
me, at that moment, it did have that very personal feel to it, as if they
were taking note of what I needed without my needing to tell them. There was
no element of fear in that thought. Does that make sense?
I thought you'd like to hear this story, Bill, perhaps in support of your
view about legitimate cookie uses, as well as knowing how to use the Privacy
and Security tabs in IE.
