I’ve also seen set up situations where a cookie was deliberately placed on a computer via responding on a forum (not here)
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Not if your computer protection doesn’t allow cookies. I have 3 programs, cookies are only allowed on the sites I choose. Others, no way. Get a cookie cleaner, run it every hour or so, deletes all cookies. Get spyware that runs constantly and blocks. Set it to the highest levels of security. Surf in stealth mode. Granted, some web pages won’t load but I don’t want them to if my programs detect things I don’t want.
I guess you’ve missed the documentation about government agreements with spysweeper software companies . . .