follow up to ques answered by palitoy-ga 25 Apr 2006
my int browser is Internet Explorer and my privacy settings are set at medium,
is this sufficient to block third party cookies, advertising and 'other'?

Hello birt-ga,

Thank-you for your question and your kind comments and rating for the
previous question.

To block third party (and other cookies) in Internet Explorer you
unfortunately have to do a little more than set your privacy settings
to medium but the steps are quite easy to follow.

1) Open Internet Explorer and go to Tools->Internet Options
2) A new window should open, go to the privacy tab where you can set
your privacy settings
3) Click the Advanced Button
4) Tick or Check the "Override automatic cookies handling" checkbox
5) Choose "Block" or "Prompt".  Block will stop all third party
cookies being set, whilst prompt will allow you to choose whether to
accept the cookie or not.
6) You may also choose to set first-party cookies and session cookies
here or leave them at the default levels.  These types of cookie
usually regulate how a website works and acknowledges your presence
(for instance they may control how you log in to a website but they
may also control advertising on that website, it varies from site to
site).
7) Click OK, then OK again to close the opened pop-up windows and your
new cookie settings will be enabled.

My advice would be to set the third-party cookies to block, check
allow session cookies and to try changing the settings for the
first-party cookies (start at block and work your way towards allow). 
Then, visit a few of your favourite websites and see how the different
settings effect your viewing of these sites.

You can see these instructions again (and some further detail) on these sites:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/articles/cookies/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/16/AR2005071600111_pf.html
http://privacy.getnetwise.org/browsing/tools/ie6/cookiesadvanced
http://www.learnthat.com/courses/computer/windowsxp/iesecurity/
http://www.learnthat.com/courses/computer/windowsxp/iesecurity/iesecurity.asp

Unfortunately this will not stop all advertising and unwanted security
risks but it is definitely a start.  The SpywareInfo website includes
an interesting article regarding other things you can do to increase
your security online here:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/articles/choices/

Many firewalls, such as ZoneAlarm, also help reduce the invasion of
advertising and spyware and privacy software, such as WebWasher, are
also worth investigating.

If you require any further assistance please do not hesitate to ask
for clarification.

thank you