On the internet, you hear a lot about "cookies" and how websites that contain cookies can keep track of all your movements throughout a site in order to use this information for subversive purposes. The Quartermaster Shop site uses cookies. We want you to know that we do. But, we also want to educate you about the usefulness of cookies and their real function as a watchdog for your privacy and convenience.

What is a cookie?

A cookie is a mechanism developed by Netscape to make up for the stateless nature of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) that transfers key words on the net. Normally, each time a browser requests the URL (Website address) of a page from a Web server, the request is treated as a completely new interaction. The fact that the request may be just the most recent in a series of requests as the user browses methodically through the site is lost. Although this makes the Web more efficient, this stateless behavior makes it difficult to create things like shopping carts that must remember the user’s actions over a particular period of time. Cookies solve this problem. A cookie is a small piece of information, often no more than a short session identifier, that the HTTP server sends to the browser when the browser connects for the first time. Thereafter, the browser returns a copy of the cookie to the server each time it connects.

Why are cookies used on Websites?

Typically the server uses the cookie to remember the user and to maintain the illusion of a "session" that spans multiple pages. Because cookies are not part of the standard HTTP specification, only some browsers support them: currently Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 and higher and Netscape Navigator 2.0 and higher. The server and/or its CGI scripts must also know about cookies in order to take advantage of them.

Cookies cannot be used to steal information about you or your computer system. They can only be used to store information that you have provided at some point. To give a benign example, if you fill out a form giving your favorite color, a server can turn this information into a cookie and send it to your browser. The next time you contact the site, your browser will return the cookie, allowing the server to alter the background color of its pages to suit your preferences.

Why does Quartermaster Shop use cookies?

On the Quartermaster Shop site, cookies are used for your security and privacy to validate all access to pages that require participants to use our shopping cart. This ensures that no one can access the private areas of the Quartermaster Shop site except for those who are supposed to be there.  In the shopping cart, the cookies keep track of and list the items you select for the Shopping Cart. These cookies remain only as long as your browser is open and they are destroyed as soon as you close it. Quartermaster Shop cannot and does not collect any data through cookies. Our website visitors can be assured that Quartermaster Shop places a high value on confidentiality, privacy, and security.

If you have questions or concerns about cookies, please drop us an e-mail. The Quartermaster Shop