Char Jackson wrote:

HTTP is a stateless protocol. Cookies provide the illusion of
statefulness. The web would be very different without cookies.


Yes, we would have more privacy. I'd swap the browser
remembering my username for that. How about cookies at the
clients discretion instead of in the form of an "information
grab". As you know, you can't even use a number of web sites
without allowing them their use of cookies--and you don't even
know their intentions (you may as well assume the worst, and hope
you're wrong!). I think that many sites would sell whatever info
they might have about you if they could get 50 cents for
it--maybe they would settle for less than a dime.