Originally Posted by Rssrsvp
It's one thing to have popups as you can use a popup blocker or simply close the web page. However it's another thing to load a cookie as most people don't realize what is happening.
Cookies are used to track a lot of things -- for example refusing to accept cookies will result in receiving popunder ads more than once per session.
I'm really surprised that at this date anyone still believes that cookies are a privacy issue. They really are not.
from the wikipedia:
Cookies can contain any arbitrary information the server chooses and are used to maintain state between otherwise stateless HTTP transactions. Typically this is used to authenticate or identify a registered user of a web site as part of their first login process or initial site registration without requiring them to sign in again every time they access that site. Other uses are maintaining a "shopping basket" of goods selected for purchase during a session at a site, site personalisation (presenting different pages to different users), and tracking a particular user's access to a site.