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Cookies & our Shopping Cart

Problem: You cannot add items to your shopping cart. When you try to add items or checkout, items that you previously added do not appear.

Cause: Cookies are blocked.

Solution: Unblock cookies.

How our Cart Uses Cookies: When you add an item to your cart, we have to know which cart is yours. We do that by setting a cookie on your computer. That way, each time you add an item to your cart, we know what you wish to buy and can keep it all together so that you can make your purchase.

Protecting Your Privacy: The only part of our site that uses cookies is our shopping cart. The cookie that is set on your computer ONLY tracks what is in your shopping cart. It does NOT collect any personal information at all.

How to Unblock Cookies: Many different security programs can block cookies. We do not know which ones that you may be using so here are some general guidelines.

• The first place to check is your browser's privacy settings. You do not have to disable cookie control. Just allow them for our site.
• If you are using an Internet Security Suite such as Norton Internet Security or McAffee Internet Security, check the settings and allow cookies for our site.
• If you are using a firewall such as Zone Alarm, you will need to enable cookies for our site. For Zone Alarm, allow cookies for our site, and then you may need to restart Zone Alarm.

More Information about Cookies

A "cookie" is a small piece of information sent by a web server to store on a web browser so it can later be read back from that browser. This is useful for having the browser remember some specific information. In simple terms, a cookie is a small file that is placed on your computer by web sites that you visit. That file can hold various types of information.

Cookies have legitimate uses. For example, our shopping cart uses a cookie to track what items you wish to purchase. Even if you have to leave our site and come back, your cart items will be remembered for up to 14 days so that you can pick up right where you left off. (As stated above, it ONLY stores the items in your cart. No personal information is stored.)

Another example is site personalization. This is one of the most beneficial uses. Let's say a person comes to the MSNBC site but doesn't want to see any sports news. They allow people to select this as an option, from then on (until the cookie expires) they wouldn't see sports news. This is also usefull for start pages.

The reason that so many people block cookies is because they also allow web sites to track what you do. A lot of people think it is an invasion of privacy; however, it can be used to make your visit to the site much more pleasurable.

• Site tracking can show web designers where "Dead End Paths" exist. These are web pages that people go to and then wander off because they don't have any more interesting links to hit. It can also give more accurate counts of how many people have been to pages on your site. You could differentiate 50 unique people seeing your site from one person hitting the reload button 50 times. The bottom line is this type of tracking allows the web designer to improve the site to better serve you.
• Targeted Marketing is probably one of the main uses of cookies, they can be used to build up a profile of where you go and what ads you click on. This information is then used to target ads to you. That way, you only see ads which might interest you. Companies also use cookies to store which ads have been displayed so the same ad does not get displayed twice.
  

What about Security?

An HTTP Cookie cannot be used to get data from your hard drive, get your email address or steal sensitive information about your person. Early implementations of Java and JavaScript could allow people to do this but for the most part these security leaks have been plugged. But HTTP Cookie can be used to track where you travel over a particular site. This site tracking can be easily done without using cookies as well, using cookies just makes the tracking data a little more consistent.

Many programs today allow you to block cookies or to only allow them if you give permission. For example:

• Most web browsers give you this control. In Internet Explorer, click on Tools > Internet Options, click the Privacy tab and your settings are right there.
• In Zone Alarm, click on Privacy. The main tab allows you to make general settings. The sites tab allows you to control cookie settings for individual sites.

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