[Carrie]

The general fear with cookies is that websites can get together and compare databases.
Like if WebsiteA puts a cookie on your machine that has your name and password and you visit WebsiteB, where they have a cookie that has your name and phone number, then at one point WebsiteA and WebsiteB could get together and have your name, password, and phone number plus know the types of products you're interested in.

Prime candidate for selling to a telemarketing firm.

And so on, and so on. Sure, shit like this *is* done from time to time, but usually only by sites that are owned by the same company. They cross-reference their databases and come up with a complete profile on you.

The problem isn't the cookies really, the problem is the information you give the site for them to tuck away in their database.

Legitimate companies though use it for innocuous things like remembering the last time you visited the site so it can give you a little "welcome back" message, remembering your login to make it more convenient for you, holding an affiliate code so they can get credit for a purchase you make, etc etc.

If you don't like cookies, either turn them off or open up your browser's cache and delete the stupid things. It doesn't take an ad-aware program to delete cookies. They're not hidden.