Originally Posted by
aviators99
Felt I should point out that the above is not true. The "data" (other than the cookie itself) *is* stored on the server. The last sentence should read: "Whenever you visit a 'cookie' site, the server looks for its cookie on your hard drive and, if found, then reads the information it stored on its own servers."
Not really. At least not necessarily. The cookie does, in fact, only hold certain information on your local computer. It might reference a server-side data structure that should be loaded or it might just reference something local. But there is no guarantee that there is specific information stored on the server that is gleaned from the cookie itself.
Originally Posted by
aviators99
Actually, if you want to get even more correct, the server tells the computer (client) to look for its cookie on your hard drive...
This I agree with, but, again, that doesn't mean that there is necessarily data about the client stored on the server inside the cookie.