A method and system that provide an intuitive user interface and related components for making Internet users aware of Internet cookie-related privacy issues, and enabling users to control Internet privacy through automatic cookie handling. Default privacy settings for handling cookies are provided, and through the user interface, the privacy settings may be customized to a user's liking. Further, through the user interface, for each individual site that forms a page of content, the site's privacy policy may be reviewed and/or the privacy controlled by specifying how cookies from that site are to be handled. To make users aware, the user interface provides an active alert on a first instance of a retrieved web site's content that fails to include satisfactory privacy information, and thereafter, provides a distinctive passive alert to allow the user selective access to privacy information, per-site cookie handling and cookie handling settings.