At 9:07 AM -0700 7/16/96, Hal wrote:
There has been quite a bit of discussion recently about the "cookies" used by Netscape Navigator and their effects on privacy of users. Here is some background and some thoughts on alternatives.
<omitted> Other uses of cookies include keeping track of pages you've already seen/done in a sequential information web site, or in a registration procedure; or validation of registered users and their expiry dates (perhaps encrypted with protective data elements to prevent cookie sharing) to avoid having to refer to a data base and slow the interaction down each new time. I've seen some sites which appear to pass you a cookie after you're registered, and in future take you directly to the "operational" first page (such as the front page of a newspaper). It's also possible to store personal data, such as the size of your largest order to date or some such, or whether you've bounced any checks/credit card transactions--so you get different treatment depending on your past history. The uses are almost as varied as the mind of the server's operators. David