Some websites store information in a small text file called a "cookie" on your hard disk.

Cookies contain information about you and your preferences. For example, if you enquire about a flight schedule at an airline's website, the site might create a cookie that contains your itinerary. Or, it might only contain a record of which pages within the site you visited which is then used to help the site customize the view for you the next time you visit.

Only the information that you provide, or the choices you make whilst visiting a website, can be stored in a cookie. For example, the site cannot determine your email address unless you choose to type it. Allowing a website to create a cookie does not give that or any other site access to the rest of your computer, and only the site that created the cookie can read it.

Internet Explorer is set up to allow the creation of cookies. However, you can specify that you be prompted before a site puts a cookie on your hard disk, so you can choose to allow or disallow the cookie. Or, you can prevent Internet Explorer from accepting any cookies.

You can specify different settings for different security zones. For example, you might want to allow websites to create cookies if they are in your Trusted Sites or Local Intranet Zone, prompt you before creating cookies if they are in your Internet Zone, and never allow cookies if they are in your Restricted Sites Zone.

Click here for details on browser settings