HTTP cookie

World-Wide Web A packet of information sent by an HTTPserver to a World-Wide Web browser and then sent back by

the browser each time it accesses that server. Cookies can

contain any arbitrary information the server chooses and are

used to maintain state between otherwise stateless HTTP

transactions. Typically this is used to authenticate or

identify a registered user of a web site without requiring

them to sign in again every time they access that site. Other

uses are, e.g. maintaining a "shopping basket" of goods you

have selected to purchase during a session at a site, site

personalisation (presenting different pages to different

users), tracking a particular user's access to a site.

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(1997-01-15)