What is a cookie?
A cookie is a harmless text file that is stored in your browser when you visit almost any web page. The utility of the cookie is that the web is able to remember your visit when you navigate this page again. Although many people do not know, cookies are being used for 20 years, when the first browsers for the World Wide Web appeared.
What is not a cookie?
It is not a virus, nor a trojan, no worm, no spam, or spyware, nor does it open pop-up windows.
What information is stored in a cookie?
Cookies do not usually store sensitive information about you, such as credit cards or bank details, photographs, your DNI or personal information, etc. The data they keep is of a technical nature, personal preferences, personalization of contents, etc.
The web server does not associate you as a person in your web browser. In fact, if you usually browse with Internet Explorer and try browsing the same web with Firefox or Chrome, you will see that the web does not realize that you are the same person that is actually associated with the browser, not the person.
What types of cookies are there?
- Technical cookies: They are the most basic and allow, among other things, to know if a human or an automated application is navigating, when an anonymous user and a registered user are browsing, basic tasks for the operation of any dynamic web.
- Analysis cookies: They collect information about the type of navigation you are doing, the sections that you most use, the products consulted, the time frame of use, the language, etc.
- Advertising cookies: They show advertising based on your navigation, your country of origin, language, etc.
What are own and third party cookies?
The own cookies are generated by the page you are visiting and third parties’ are generated by external services or providers such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.
What happens if you turn off cookies?
To understand the consequences of disabling cookies, we show you some examples:
- You will not be able to share content on this website on Facebook, Twitter or any other social network.
- The website will not be able to adapt the content to your personal preferences, as is usually the case in online stores.
- You will not be able to access the personal area of ??this website, such as my account, or My profile or My orders.
- Online Stores: It will be impossible for you to shop online, you will have to do so by telephone or visit the physical store, if existing.
- It will not be possible to customize your geographic preferences such as time zone, currency or language.
- The website will not be able to perform web analytics on visitors and traffic on the web, which will make more difficult for the web to be competitive.
- You will not be able to write to the blog, upload photos, post comments, rate contents. The web will not be able to know if you are a human or an automated application that publishes spam.
- You will not be able to display sector-specific advertising, which will reduce the advertising revenue of the web.
- All social networks use cookies, if you disable them you will not be able to use any social network.
Can cookies be removed?
Yes. Not only eliminate them, also block them, in a general or particular way for a specific domain.
To remove cookies from a website, you must go to your browser’s settings and there you can search for those cookies associated to the specific domain and proceed to its elimination.