Web sites routinely collect certain information from visitors to maintain statistics and to enhance the visitor’s experience on the Web site. Much of this information may be sent from the visitor’s computer to the Web site without the visitor’s knowledge, and may reveal more than the visitor expects. A Web site owner can learn many things about visitors through “cookies” and environment variables such as the IP address.
A “cookie” is a small piece of information written on a visitor’s computer by a Web site. A cookie might contain the visitor’s Web site user name and password, display preferences or even name and address. When a Web site offers to “remember” a visitor, it is offering to write cookies. Cookies stay on the visitor’s computer after the visitor has left the Web site, closed the Web browser, disconnected from the Internet and even turned off the computer. If a visitor provides his name and e-mail address to a Web site, that information might be stored in a cookie, and would be available to the Web site on the next visit, which could be months later.
