Looking at cookies and privacy policies

The main threat posed by cookies is invasion of privacy. As mentioned, unacceptable cookies might contain personal information that could be exploited.

Many Web sites that use cookies these days will back them up with a compact privacy policy. The privacy policy specifies how the site will protect your privacy. You can check to see what cookies, if any, a Web page has put on your system:

1. If you're not already at the Web page in question, browse to it normally.
2. Choose View → Web page privacy policy from Internet Explorer's menu.

A list of files downloaded from that page appears in a dialog box. If the page loaded a cookie, you see Accepted or Blocked in the Cookies column. To see whether the cookie has a compact privacy policy, click the address to the left of Accepted or Blocked and then click Summary.

If your current privacy settings blocked a cookie that you need for the page, you can choose Always Allow This Site to Use Cookies to loosen the restrictions on that site. Similarly, if a cookie was accepted, you can choose to block future cookies from that site. If trying to manage cookies on a case-by-case basis gets to be too much trouble, click the Settings button to get to the Privacy slider. Then drag the slider down a notch or two to loosen your restrictions.

Note Third-party cookies, which come from a site other than the one you're visiting, are the greatest offenders. That's why most of the privacy settings focus on third-party cookie handling.