Is there a relationship between Cookies & Web Bugs?
To understand why cookies and Web bugs are so potentially threatening, you need to understand one special fact about cookies. When a cookie is placed on your computer, the server that originally placed the cookie is the only one that can read it. In theory, if two separate sites each place a cookie on your computer, they can t read the data stored in each other s cookies. That means, for example, that one site can t tell that you have recently visited the other site. However, the situation is very different if the cookie placed on your computer contains information that is sent by that site to an advertising agency s server, and that agency is used by both Web sites. If each of these sites places a Web bug on their page to report information back to the advertising agency s computer, every time you visit either site, details about you will be sent back to the advertising agency utilising information stored on your computer in the agency s cookie. This allows your computer to be identif
