# XP, IE5 and privacy paranoia

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xp-ie5-and-privacy-paranoia/166366>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 4, 2003, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xp-ie5-and-privacy-paranoia/166366 "2003-04-04T02:25:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![uglybeech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/82dd89/32.png) [@uglybeech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uglybeech)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2003, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xp-ie5-and-privacy-paranoia/166366/1 "2003-04-04T02:25:23Z")

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My computer was built for me and the software installed by a friend. When he registered all the software he registered most of them using my full name and set up my user account using my name.

So two things:

1. I noticed recently that all the cookies in my directory are listed as myname@… (I don’t know if that’s inserted automatically because Internet Explorer has me registered or because of my XP user name or what.) Does that mean every web site I go to knows who I am by name?

2. Also my name gets inserted in all sorts of other random places and it’s all over the registry (Mostly under Documents and Settings/myname/…) This seems like a sort of generic hazard. I can’t change that folder name and setting up a new user account makes half my software inoperable. Am I just being paranoid about this or not? If not are there any fixes?