- <p>From the early days of the internet, it became obvious that it would be advantageous for websites to be able to store
- information on a computer for future access. For example, a website that displays weather information could ask the
- user for a zip code, and then store it in a cookie. The next time the user visited the website, weather information
- would automatically load for that zip code, without the user having to enter the zip code, and without the need for
- the user to create an account on the website (which would be overkill for such a simple task).</p>
+ <p>From the early days of the internet, it became obvious that it would be advantageous for websites to be able to store information on a computer for future access.
+ For example, a website that displays weather information could ask the user for a zip code, and then store it in a cookie.
+ The next time the user visited the website, weather information would automatically load for that zip code, without the user having to enter it again.</p>
+
+ <p>Like everything else on the web, clever people figured out all types of ways to abuse cookies to do things that users would not approve of if they knew they were happening.
+ For example, a website can set a cookie with a unique serial number on a device.
+ Then, every time a user visits the website on that device, it can be linked to a unique profile the server maintains for that serial number,
+ even if the device connects from different IP addresses.</p>