• The Freddie Kruger of eCommerce

• HTML is a "stateless protocol."  It does not remember.

• How to remember "shopping basket" information etc.?

• Browsers allow web sites to store some information on the local hard drive - the cookie!

• Cookies do not directly identify users -only machines.

• Cookies are now in extensive use.

• Web Advertisers like DoubleClick can now aggregate data from cookies from many different member sites.

• Profiling!

• combined with data from other sources may yield more data about you than you care to give!

Cookies can be turned off in the browser for added security.

eBusiness: The Hope, the Hype, the Power, the Pain 

( © J.  Wilson   1999, 2000 )