Cookies and Privacy Settings As spyware has become more common, the need to protect your personal

Cookies and Privacy Settings As spyware has become more common, the need to protect your personal

information, including browser history, has grown. A cookie is a message given to a web browser by a web server, which is typically stored in a text file

Features of Internet Explorer 8.0

on the PC’s hard drive. The message is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. The main purpose of cookies is to identify users and possibly prepare customized webpages for them. When you enter a website using cookies, you might be asked to fill out a form pro- viding some information, such as your name and interests. This information is packaged into a cookie and sent to your web browser, which stores it for later use. The next time you go the same website, your browser sends the cookie to the web server. The server can use this information to present you with cus- tom webpages. So, for example, instead of seeing just a generic welcome page you might see a welcome page with your name on it. Some uses of cookies include keeping track of what a person buys, using online ordering systems, personalizing a website, storing a person’s profile, storing user IDs, and pro- viding support to older web browsers that do not support host header names.

A cookie cannot be used to get data from your hard drive, get your email addresses, or steal sensitive information about you.

From the General tab, you can delete the cookies that are stored on your hard drive. By clicking the Privacy tab, you can adjust the tab slider on the privacy scale to determine how much of your personal information can be accessed by websites and whether a website can save cookies on your computer.

To view privacy settings, select the Privacy tab from the Internet Options dia- log box. To adjust your privacy settings, adjust the tab slider to a new position on the privacy scale. A description of the privacy settings that you select dis- plays on the right side of the tab slider. The default level is Medium; it is rec- ommended that you configure Medium or higher. You can also override the default for cookies in each security zone. In addition, you can override certain settings (automatic cookie handling and session cookies) by clicking the Advanced button, or you can allow or block cookies from individual websites by clicking the Edit button.

Many websites provide privacy statements that you view. A site’s privacy policy tells you what kind of information the site collects and stores and what it does with the information. Information that you should be mostly concerned with is how the websites use personally identifiable information such as your name, email addresses, address, and telephone number. Websites also might provide

a Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) privacy policy, which can be used by browsers to filter cookie transactions on the basis of a cookie’s content and purpose. To view the Privacy Report, open the View menu and click Privacy Report. To view a site’s privacy statement, select the website and click on the Summary button.

CHAPTER 13: Working with Internet Explorer 8.0