Profiles represent an effective way to add personalization to your site. The profile scheme in the Web.Config defines the profiles available to the application. ASP.NET will synthesize a ProfileCommon class that includes support for the properties defined in Web.Config. To access the properties, grab the Profile object from the Page for the current HttpContext. ASP.NET will take care of the details of serializing the property data and tracking it either anonymously or by using the identity of the logged in user.