I've noticed that some Members' signatures seem to link to sites that launch Cookies every time a page with those signatures is accessed.

Would someone with much greater knowledge on this subject please lend your expertise with a post answering this thread's question?

My rudimentary understanding is that a linked image in a signature might be on a site that automatically sends Cookies to you when the page and its images are loaded. Have I got that right?

Wouldn't it be a good idea to avoid these constantly-loading Cookies by eliminating Cookie-generating links and images in our signatures?

Couldn't this be accomplished by adopting the practice of sending a PM to fellow Members whose signatures are inadvertently loading Cookies onto our hard drives?

I think I've already found one such Cookie-generating image in a signature by using View>Source to look at the link in the signature of one Member whose posts seem to always generate Cookies just by being part of a page of posts.

I'm not sure a signature could launch cookies...
if it can, I ned to learn a lot more.

I have my privacy settings set to block 3rd party cookies, allow session cookies, and prompt for others. You have to press "B" a lot, but you don't get any you don't need if you block them all whenever you're not logging in to something.
I'll start paying attention to the ones I've been blocking out of habit without thinking about it. Interesting...

My rudimentary understanding is that a linked image in a signature might be on a site that automatically sends Cookies to you when the page and its images are loaded. Have I got that right?

Wouldn't it be a good idea to avoid these constantly-loading Cookies by eliminating Cookie-generating links and images in our signatures?

Any time that autoloading of images is enabled, the possibility of cookies is also enabled. What you are asking for is to prevent any autoloading component in either the signature or the body of a post...

The other option is to configure your browser to not accept cookies without a prompt.