Cookies are small pieces of text sent to your browser from a Website you visit. They make it easier for the site to memorize information about your visit, such as your preferred language and other settings. This can facilitate your next visit and make the site more useful for you. Cookies play an important role. Without them, using the web would be a much more complex experience.
We use cookies for many reasons. We use them, for example, to memorize your preferences for safe search, to count the number of visitors to a page, or to make it easier for you to sign up for our services and protect your data.
There are two categories of cookies:
- Technical cookies: Essential for a site to run and navigate by the user. Without them, users may not be able to view the pages correctly or use certain services.
- Profiling Cookies: Used to create a user profile to send promotional messages according to the preferences made by the user during browsing.
Cookies, either “Technical” or “Profiling”, may also be classified as follows:
- “Session” cookies, which are deleted immediately after the browser closes.
- “Persistent” cookies, which remain in the browser for a certain period of time. These cookies are used, for example, to identify the device connected to a website by facilitating user authentication procedures.
- “Own” cookies, which are created and managed directly by the operator of the website on which the user is browsing.
- “Third party” cookies, which are created and managed by parties other than the operator of the website on which the user is browsing.
- “Functionality” cookies, these cookies allow the website to record information about the choices made by the user in order to tailor the website to the user’s needs. For example, functionality cookies allow the website to record the user’s specific settings, such as the country selected and, if set up, permanent access.
- “Strictly necessary” cookies, are essential to navigate around a website and use its features. Without them, you wouldn’t be able to use basic services like registration or shopping baskets. These cookies do not gather information about you that could be used for marketing or remembering where you’ve been on the internet.
- “Performance” cookies, collect data for statistical purposes on how visitors use a website, they don’t contain personal information such as names and email addresses, and are used to improve user experience of a website.
- “Targeting and Advertising” cookies, are used to deliver advertisements more relevant to you, but can also limit the number of times you see an advertisement, and be used to chart the effectiveness of an ad campaign by tracking users’ clicks. They can also provide security in transactions. They are usually placed by third-party advertising networks with a website operator’s permission, but can be placed by the operator themselves. They can remember that you have visited a website, and this information can be shared with other organizations, including other advertisers. They cannot determine who you are though, as the data collected is never linked to your profile.