How do web sites use cookies?
Most cookies are useful in web surfing. Some cookies (“session cookies”) last only until you close your browser. This type of cookie is mainly used to remember choices that you make as you navigate through a web site. Many sites leave cookies on your computer so that they recognize you when you return to their sites. These cookies (“persistent cookie”) identify you so that options and preferences that you have chosen in the past are used for your current visit to the site. The Internet offers a wide variety of useful services such as free e-mail accounts, online forums, and e-commerce sites. The use of cookies is essential for these sites. Without cookies, for example, the sites would have no way to track the items that you placed into your virtual shopping cart as you browsed about the site.
