question about cookies

Hey, I am fairly new to this forum but understand cookies on the whole. However, I am want to grasp exactly how it works....

So, let's say that drop a cookie using an <img>. Now, I know that it will embed. I also realize that if someone was to go to another site that didn't drop a cookie, I would still get credited for the sale. But what if they went to a site that embeds cookies as well? Would their cookie overwrite mine?

I have gotten mixed responses about this. For instance, I have had a couple people say that it the first one in wins and all the other cookies will simply "stack" (whatever that means). Others say that my cookie will be rewritten. Anyone know exactly what happens...and can you walk me through the process as to what is physically happening? Thanks

Usually they will be overwritten ( i.e. for amazon.com) and I actually never heard anyone talking about stacking cookies.
Since cookies will (well in most cases) be stored with the same name anyways they simply overwrite the other aff id.

Thanks for your reply...Are the <img> cookies stored in the same temporary files as others or will they go somewhere else? The reason why I am asking this is because I want to understand how cookies work and if the <img> cookies are stored differently than say, other cookies. Aren't images treated differently, storage wise? Don't they have a different folder? (I know, complete noob question)

For instance, obviously a clickbank cookie straightaway will most likely get overwritten because the name is the same. But what if you were to redirect cookie first (different name) and then point it to clickbank? Would that have a different effect?

If you use the img tag trick, the browser will be redirected from that nonexisting image to your affiliate page whatsoever and request the cookie.

So what actually happens is simply a cookie being put into the folder where all cookies go

And to your second question, it is not YOU who writes the cookie, it is the page of whatever you are cookie stuffing, so you can't really do anything about that.

So basically I am telling you not to worry about your cookie being overwritten 'cause you need to stuff thousands of cookies a day to actually see earnings, so there is no reason to think about the 100-200 guys who slip through your grip.