You can control whether or not you want cookies in your system by going to the control bar (in Netscape), click on OPTIONS, then click to NETWORK PREFERENCES, then click PROTOCOLS where you will find a place to either check or uncheck a box to answer the question "Show an alert before accepting a Cookie".
It can be a pain in the tookus at some sites when the alert comes up (if you choose to be alerted) to deny it access, but at least you get to make the decision about whether or not you want to allow it on your system.
To get a better understanding of the pros and cons of cookies, you might want to do a Yahoo search for Cookies and decide for yourself. I didn't know for a long time my system way even adding them in automatically. You should have a cookie file somewhere in your browser to let you see how much filespace they are taking up.
Hope this helps. They apparently are sometimes a necessary tool for websites to keep track of customer preferences, but there is also some concern about letting a server program write onto your disk and exactly *what* information it has about you. By using the above described method, at least *you* can decide whether or not to accept them.
Bon apetite!
Captain Zot