Legal Terms

cookie

A piece of information that a website stores on a visitor's hard drive so that the website can retrieve the information when the visitor returns to the site. For example, a website may use a cookie to retrieve a visitor's name and address so the visitor doesn't have to enter that information again. A website can legally use cookies to personalize a visitor's experience, to track a visitor's movements on a site or to target a visitor for specific advertisements. Generally, a cookie cannot be used to corrupt or steal data, such as an email address, from a visitor's hard drive.