The computer cookie is based on an age old idea of marketers. The more information you have on someone, the better off you’ll be trying to sell them something. A computer cookie is a simple text file that contains information about things such as your browsing history, clicked ads, and time spent on pages; to name a few.
1.) A session cookie, is only meant to be placed on your computer while you are on the current website. This type of cookie only lasts until you either sign-out of the website, or you completely close your Internet browser. The session cookie is used to store your log in information while you are visiting a site, or perhaps to store what may be in you shopping cart.
2.) A persistent cookie, or a “permanent cookie”, is stored permanently on your computer even after you leave the website or close out your Internet browser. This persistent cookie, is usually used to track your browsing habits online. Website owners and Internet Marketers use these cookies to see exactly what pages on their site, as well as other sites on the Internet your looking at. By doing this, it allows them to be able to target, and monitor your searching, browsing, and spending habits. So that eventually, even months or years later you can return to their site, and they will have compiled a list of things they can try and sell you. Some websites use computer cookies in this fashion and link that information to the ads you see on their sites, hoping since you looked for it once, maybe you will buy it from them.
With billions of websites and billions of computers surfing those sites, some people may be wondering how website owners keep there computer cookie information separate from one user to the next. Well, each computer cookie the website hands out is given an “id tag” with the corresponding tag stored in the websites database. When the user with the computer cookie returns, and it has a matching id tag, the information is sent to the server, and saved in the database with the matching id.
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