Another area for debate involves security for personal information. Many people are concerned about privacy issues, and there are numerous urban legends about unscrupulous companies invading a web surfer's computer, and extracting all kinds of personal data from their hard drives. These stories are highly exaggerated and often false. The truth is that many companies use a technology called 'cookies' to enhance your interaction with them via their website. And this use of technology is almost universally benign.

Cookies are files which are created on your system to store information about a relationship that you have initiated with someone (or someplace) on the Web. The type of information is varied - it could be as simple as your name and password used to enter a restricted site, or it could be a complete demographic file that you completed when ordering something from a website.

It's important to note what cookies can and can not do. To begin with, cookies can only provide information of two kinds; either personal information that YOU provided to the website on your last visit, or website information that the website owner knows, such as which ads you saw on your last visit. This session information is by far the most prevalent use for cookies on the Internet today.

A cookie can not examine other files on your computer, and provide other information contained on your system. They are NOT able to locate and pass on your credit card information, your e-mail address, or the steamy letter you wrote to your significant other during that business trip out of town last summer! Note that a cookie might have your credit card number and e-mail address - IF you entered that information on a form at someone's website. That's the only way personal information can get into a cookie.

Cookies can not deliver viruses to your PC, or deliver programs that sneak in and operate themselves without your knowledge (sometimes referred to as Trojan Horse programs).

A cookie can not track all the sites you visited in a session, although it can track all the pages you visited on a particular website.

If you are interested in further control of cookies, you will probably want to check out ZDNet's CookieMaster, or Cookie Pal, both located at http://www.hotfiles.com , and both available for free download (Pal is $15 if you decide to keep it, Master is free regardless).

Both of these excellent utilities give you even greater control and access to information about cookies which are flying at your computer from many of the sites you visit online.