Hopefully, only Sesame Street’s The Cookie Monster would most probably be very disappointed with this post especially because it most likely wouldn’t be to his taste as a typical snack. The topic of reference here is a cookie of the digital kind used routinely in computer communication networks. Here is an excellent introduction to the subject:

“A cookie is a small amount of data, which often includes an anonymous unique identifier that is sent to your browser from a website's computer and stored on your computer's hard drive.

Each website can send its own cookie to your browser if your browser's preferences allow it, but (to protect your privacy) your browser only permits a web site to access the cookies it has already sent to you, not the cookies sent to you by other sites.

Many sites do this whenever a user visits their website in order to track online traffic flows.

Cookies record information about your online preferences. Users have the opportunity to set their computers to accept all cookies, to notify them when a cookie is issued, or not to receive cookies at any time.

The last of these, of course, means that certain personalised services cannot then be provided to that user user and accordingly you may not be able to take full advantage of all of the website’s features.

Each browser is different, so check the "Help" menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences.

If you have set your computer to reject cookies you can still browse a website anonymously until such time as you wish to register for the website’s services.

How to find and control your cookies

If you're using Netscape 6.0:
On your Task Bar, click:

1. Edit, then
2. Preferences
3. Click on Advanced
4. Click on Cookies

If you're using Internet Explorer 6.0:

1. Choose Tools, then
2. Internet Options
3. Click the Privacy Tab
4. Click on Custom Level
5. Click on the 'Advanced' button
6. Check the 'override automatic cookie handing' box and select Accept, Block or Prompt for action as appropriate.

If you're using Internet Explorer 5.0 or 5.5:

1. Choose Tools, then
2. Internet Options
3. Click the Security tab
4. Click on Custom Level
5. Scroll down to the sixth option to see how cookies are handled by IE5 and change to Accept, Disable, or Prompt for action as appropriate.

How do you know which of the sites you've visited use cookies?

If you're using Netscape 6.0; on your Task Bar, click:

1. Edit, then
2. Preferences
3. Click on Advanced
4. Click on Cookies
5. Click the View Cookies button

If you're using Internet Explorer 5.0 or 6.0:

1. Choose Tools, then
2. Internet Options
3. Click the General tab
4. Click Settings
5. View Files

 

How to see your cookie code

Just click on a cookie to open it. You'll see a short string of text and numbers. The numbers are your identification card, which can only be seen by the server that gave you the cookie.

 

For further information on cookies please visit www.aboutcookies.org.

 

This [the following] is a list of the main cookies that bbc.co.uk sets, and what each is used for:

Cookie name

Purpose

BBC-UID cookie

A unique identifier given to each computer to allow log analysis to determine the number of unique users for various parts of bbc.co.uk. Data is only used in aggregate.

BBCMediaselector cookie

Used to store your user preferences for Audio-Video content from bbc.co.uk - format (Real player or Windows Media player) and quality (narrowband or broadband).

BBCPostcoder cookie

Used to store your user preferences for geographic specific content on bbc.co.uk - allows pages to present information for your local area, primarily on the homepage, but also in other areas like bbc.co.uk/arts.

BBCWEACITY cookie

Used to store your user preferences for home city - allows the the weather site to present information for your local area.

BBCNewsAudience cookie

Used to store your user preferences for which edition (domestic UK or International) of the BBC homepage, Radio, TV and Weather homepages, News site and Sport site you wish to view when visiting www.bbc.co.uk.

BBCNewsAudcWght cookie

Used to record the degree of certainty of the domestic UK or International edition preference ascribed to you. If you make an express preference (see above) then we can be certain of which edition of the domestic UK or International site to serve to you. If you do not express a preference we will make a guess of varying degrees of certainty as to which edition of the domestic UK or International site is most appropriate for you based on your IP.

BBCNewsAudcWghtUpd cookie

Used to keep track of when your BBCNewsAudcWght cookie (if any) was last updated. This ensures that, where we have guessed which edition of the domestic UK or International site is most appropriate for you, we continue to review our assumptions.

SSO2-UID cookie

Used to allow you to be automatically signed in to a bbc.co.uk service which you have previously registered for.

BBC-H2-User cookie

Used for user authentication for the bbc.co.uk messageboard system.

rmRpDetectReal cookie

Used to store a preference to prevent 'You don't have Real player installed …' alerts coming up if you really don't want to install it and don't want to be pestered with requests to do so.

*votename* cookie

Some voting systems on bbc.co.uk may set a cookie to discourage voters voting more than once. In each case the cookie's name will reflect the vote in question.

Survey cookie - "bbcsurvey"

Used to ensure that once you have taken a BBC survey, or said that you don't want to be surveyed, that you are not offered the same survey again.

bbcComSurvey

Used to ensure that once you have taken a BBC survey, or said that you don't want to be surveyed, that you are not offered the same survey again. This cookie is used when there are two concurrent surveys being run.

myway

Used to store your user preference for which colours to use (for example, high contrast colour scheme) on bbc.co.uk/accessibility.

BBCLiveStatsClick

Used to capture the co-ordinates of clicks made on the BBC News pages. The cookie expires after 8 seconds and the information is used to inform editorial decisions about page layout and promotion.

BBCHomeOpt

Used to store user preferences for customisable elements, where available, on the bbc.co.uk homepage.

BBCNewsCustomisation

Used to store user preferences for customisable elements, where available, within news.bbc.co.uk .

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk

British Broadcasting Corporation © 2001-2006
Broadcasting House,
Portland Place,
London,
W1A 1AA