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But let's go further and ban cookies too. Cookies are those small files that Web sites store on your computer for their convenience. I never even liked the idea of cookies. Why should some Web site be storing its data on my machine? While a cookie is kind of handy when you want to store a password, this can be done other ways without the alien Web site looking at my files. Whose idea was this anyway? Cookies are like those marks that hoboes used to make on picket fences during the depression in the 1930s. They were marks to tell other hoboes who the rubes were. A cookie is a marker telling Web sites that I'm a sucker.

{snipped a bit}

Back to my main complaint. One thing that comes to mind in all this debate and hand-wringing over spyware, cookies, ActiveX, Java and the like is the idea of making any use of cookie technology itself illegal.

I've thought about this before. This is all about your computer doing stuff to my computer without my permission, isn't it? Make all such action illegal. That means cookies too. So what if the browser lets you create cookies? Does that mean we cannot outlaw them? There are plenty of capabilities within browser code that shouldn't be allowed to be present. But let's start with cookies and generalize a law with cookies in mind.

Something like this would work for me: "Any person who knowingly writes or reads files from another person's computer by personal or robotic means for whatever reason whatsoever and without the permission of the party involved, with full knowledge of the activity each and every time the action is performed, is guilty of a felony and subject to fine and imprisonment not to exceed $10,000 and one year in prison for each offense."

That would cover it for me.

John C. Dvorak

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