A SYSTEM FOR MANAGING USER-CHARACTERIZING NETWORK PROTOCOL HEADERS

A system for enabling a user of a computer attached to a computer network, and accessing sites on the network, to manage user-characterizing protocol headers on the user's computer. A particular application of the present invention is to manage so-called Internet cookies on a computer attached to the Internet and using a browser to access websites through the World Wide Web. Such cookies have a type and a value. The managing includes displaying to a user an interpretation of cookies that have been se t on the user's computer; the interpretation is made by an interpreter referri ng to a local cookie dictionary, on the user's computer, having entries corresponding to different types of cookies. In various alternative embodiments, the managing also includes changing the values set by the websites, and fabricating cookies of types not necessarily used by a website in order to express to the website preferences a user wants the website to know. In some embodiments, the system also includes a means by which the fabricated cookies are made knowable to websites on the Internet, namely a universal cookie dictionary; and a site-specific cookie dictionary maintaine d by a third party so as to contain updated entries for interpreting cookies used by websites on the Internet. In one aspect of the invention, auser can periodically update the local cookie, using a local cookie dictionary, to include changes to the site-specific and universal cookie dictionaries.