Publication as a Working Group Note does not imply endorsement by the W3C Membership.This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time.
W3C maintains a public list of any patent disclosures made in connection with the deliverables of the group; that page also includes instructions for disclosing a patent.
An individual who has actual knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains Essential Claim(s) must disclose the information in accordance with section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.
An HTTP cookie (also called web cookie, Internet cookie, browser cookie or simply cookie) is a small piece of data sent from a website and stored in the user's web browser while the user is browsing.
Cookies were designed to be a reliable mechanism for websites to remember stateful information (such as items added in the shopping cart in an online store) or to record the user's browsing activity (including clicking particular buttons, logging in, or recording which pages were visited in the past).
They can also be used to remember arbitrary pieces of information that the user previously entered into form fields such as names, addresses, passwords, and credit card numbers.
Other kinds of cookies perform essential functions in the modern web.
Perhaps most importantly, authentication cookies are the most common method used by web servers to know whether the user is logged in or not, and which account they are logged in with.
This document explains the syntax, vocabulary and the available APIs for HTML5 documents, focussing on simplicity and practical applications for beginners while also providing in depth information for more advanced web developers. This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at
This document is an Editors Draft of the “HTML5 Reference” produced by the HTML Working Group, part of the HTML Activity.
The working group is working on HTML5 (see the HTML5 Editor’s draft).