Cookies are small text files (4,000 bytes max.) sent to your computer by a visited server and saved to your hard drive. Cookies allow servers to track registration and transactional information. By retrieving cookies, servers identify you and recall your site-specific password, preferences, and information that you have given previously.

      Cookies only hold information, they cannot get information. Cookies cannot enable the web server to read from your hard drive, destroy files, or create an executable file. They only contain information you willingly disclose to the site which set the cookie. A browser will only give up a cookie to the server that set it. Most cookies are relative to a particular site, and are sent by the server to any server within that domain.

     Any web site can get information such as your operating system, your browser, and the last site visited without using cookies.