Information About Cookies

What are cookies?

Cookies are small bits of information that Web sites (like this one) give to your Web browser. Your browser then stores these cookies on your computer. When your Web browser returns to that site, the cookies read from the computer and offered back to the Web site. Cookies from one Web site are not offered to other Web sites.

Are cookies safe?

Yes

A Web site can only offer cookies to your browser. It is up to you and your browser software if the cookies gets accepted. If they are accepted it is up to your software to determine were the cookies are stored. The Web site can not even suggest to your browser a different storage location.

Cookies can only contain information that you provide to the Web site or that the Web site already knew.

Web sites do not take cookies from your computer, cookies are given to the Web site. This means that the site will only get cookies that belong to it. Web sites can only get other Web site's cookies if your browser offers them up. If your browser does this, it is faulty.

You can not get a virus from a cookie.

No

Some older Web browsers contained faults that caused the browser to offer cookies from one site to another site. This has been fixed in newer browsers. If "unimportant" information is stored in the cookies, this is not a problem. This Web site stores only "unimportant" information in cookies.

What are cookies used for?

There are many uses for cookies but the two most common are information storage and uniquely identification.

Information Storage

Some Web sites store information about you in cookies. This information varies depending on how the site is setup and what you provide to site. Some examples are:

  • Web pages that you have visited at that site.
  • Information that you have entered into forms at that site.
  • The last time you visited the site.
  • The number of times you have visited the site.

Unique Identification

When a Web browser requests a page from a Web server, it follows these steps:

  • Connect to the site.
  • Ask for the Web page.
  • Receive the Web page.
  • Disconnect from the site.

Because the Web browser connects and disconnects to receive every requested page, the Web site is forced to treat the browser as if it is a new user every time a page is requested.

If the Web site stores a unique identification number for that browser in a cookie, then the site can tell if the users is new or not.

What does this Web site use cookies for?

The Gap Analysis Program mostly uses cookies for unique identification. This is very helpful in situations where our users need to fill out multi-page forms or browse in secure area of our site.

At no time do we store important information in a cookie.