Discover how cookies impact user privacy and explore essential compliance with global data privacy laws like the GDPR and EU cookie regulations. Learn about cookie types, obtaining consent, and managing cookies to ensure lawful data collection for your website's success.
Explore more privacy compliance insights and best practices
Cookies are all over the internet. They allow websites to remember your language preferences, the items in your shopping cart, track your browsing on the internet, what videos you like to watch on Youtube and help them recommend better videos, and so on. Learn how to comply with data privacy cookie requirements here.
Cookies for a website are usually a complicated subject. It doesn’t have to be like that. Learn about cookies, HTTP cookies, and third-party cookies here!
Online businesses want to make data-driven decisions. That’s why they need to collect data about user’s behavior on their website, where their users come from, what demographic groups they belong to, and so on. That’s where cookies come in handy.
Cookies are all over the internet. They allow websites to remember your language preferences, the items in your shopping cart, track your browsing on the internet, what videos you like to watch on Youtube, and help them recommend better videos, and so on.
They can be helpful but at a price. That price is the collection of personal data and the related risks.
Due to the possible abuse of personal data, many governments worldwide have introduced legislation to regulate the use of cookies - the most essential and comprehensive being the EU cookie laws.
Businesses must comply with these laws to avoid penalties and losing customers’ trust. That’s why it is essential to understand the following:
Cookies are small files that a website or an app sends to the user’s computer, mobile device, or another device to track something and collect data about it. When these text files reach the user’s device, they create an identifier for the specific user and help collect certain categories of data for which that particular cookie has been designed to collect.
In many places on the internet, cookies are called HTTP cookies, browser cookies, web cookies, or internet cookies. There is no difference between them.
When you visit a website, your browser sends a request to the web server. The server then sends back a cookie to your browser. The cookie is stored on your computer or mobile device and sent back to the server each time you visit the website.
The server uses the cookie to identify you and remember your cookie preferences. For example, if you log in to a website, the cookie will remember your username and password so that you don't have to enter them again each time you visit.
The use of cookies is not inherently good or bad, but their use raises online privacy concerns. Data privacy laws protect the personal data of individuals, which means that the use of cookies is affected. That’s why website owners need to learn about user privacy and, in many cases, block cookies until the user agrees to their use.
Cookies are used for a variety of purposes, including:
For example, an analytics cookie sent to a user’s device to track the web pages they visit on the website will collect data on that user’s browsing behavior. If the cookie was designed to collect data that identifies the user by their demographic characteristics, such as country, age, gender, and others, then it will collect that data, too.
Other businesses design and use cookies to track your browsing history. They collect information from your web browser and store information about your browsing data so advertisers can learn more about you and your interest. As a result, they will be able to serve you with ads tailored to your interests.
Some cookies can help remember your user preferences on a website, login information, online shopping cart, and authentication, improving your user experience overall.
And in some cases, cookies may be used for malicious purposes, such as spreading malware.
They will track what you tell them to follow.
There are many different types of cookies. You can classify tracking cookies depending on various criteria. The most common standards include the following:
The duration criteria classify cookies based on their expiration date, i.e., how long they stay in the users’ device. They can be:
The provenance criteria classify cookies based on where they come from. They can be first-party cookies and third-party cookies.
However, sometimes cookies cannot be easily placed in one of these two groups. A good example is Facebook tracking cookies - produced by Facebook but stored on your website. Although they have been created by a third party (Facebook), and you can extract data collected by them only by using Facebook marketing tools, they are stored on your website like first-party cookies.
Certain cookies differ based on the purpose they serve your business.
The most general classification based on purpose is on essential and non-essential cookies.
The essential cookies are necessary for the proper functioning of the website. They have to be here to ensure you can use the website or the app.
Non-essential cookies allow purposes that are not necessary for the website’s functioning. All they do is help businesses collect the data they need.
Non-essential cookies can be:
There are many other types of cookies based on purpose - as many as there are purposes - but these are the most common ones.
Malicious purposes are worth mentioning, too. Some website operators serve the so-called zombie cookies. Zombie cookies help collect data without their knowledge, even after clearing cookies.
This classification is the most important from a legal point of view. The granularity of cookie consent required by the EU cookie laws, such as the ePrivacy Directive and the GDPR, fits the purpose-based classification. See GDPR cookie consent examples.
First-party cookies are set by the website you are visiting. First-party cookies are generally considered to be less privacy-invasive than third-party cookies. This is because first-party cookies are only used by the website you are visiting.
Third-party cookies are set by third-party websites that have embedded content on the website you are visiting. These cookies can be used by websites even if they did not put that cookie. This means that third-party cookies can be used to track your activity across multiple websites.
Most third-party cookies have no direct impact on your browsing experience, as many browsers have already begun phasing them out and not allowing third-party cookies to be used in their browsers. Some web browsers, such as Mozilla Firefox and Apple’s Safari, block third-party cookies by default. Google Chrome will block them starting in 2024. Many websites still operate fine and remember your preferences without using third-party cookies.
Cookies can affect user privacy in a number of ways. For example, cookies are also used to track your browsing history, your location, and your interests. This information can then be used to target you with advertising or to collect data for analytics and research.
You can use cookies for a variety of purposes, including:
A cookie policy is a document that informs users about the cookies that a website uses and how the website uses those cookies. Cookie policies are typically required by law.
There are many countries all over the world that require a cookie policy. Some of the most well-known laws include:
As a result, many of them require businesses to obtain explicit user consent before using cookies.
However, not all of them have strict requirements for obtaining valid consent. Therefore, compliance with one law doesn’t mean compliance with all the other laws that require it.
You have to do your due diligence to ensure you know your situation’s particular legal requirements.
EU cookie laws aim to protect personal data. Therefore, they regulate the use of cookies that collect data. This means that not all cookies are under the scope of these laws. However, if a cookie contains at least a single piece of personal information from a user, you must comply with the regulations.
EU cookie laws require you to obtain explicit user consent for using cookies. Without consent, you must not use cookies. If you use them without consent, you violate the law and will be fined.
However, not all consent is created equal. You need to request and obtain consent the right way. Consents collected against the GDPR are invalid, and using cookies upon such collection is unlawful and a reason to get in trouble with the GDPR.
According to the ePrivacy Directive, businesses must obtain explicit user consent before using cookies. That was about enough to comply with EU cookie laws from the introduction of the ePrivacy Directive in 2002 till coming into effect of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) in 2018.
Then, the requirements have become stricter. According to the GDPR, conditions are more detailed. They are prescribed in detail in the law and further tightened by the Planet49 decision of the Court of Justice of the EU and the EDPB guidelines on obtaining consent.
Consent has to be:
Ensure that the checkboxes or toggles for giving consent for each specific purpose are not pre-checked. The data protection authority fined Planet49 because they had the checkboxes pre-checked.
Also, do not pre-check checkboxes for giving consent for each specific purpose.
Website owners generally request cookies consent from the user when they arrive on the website for the first time. The most common way to do so is by a pop-up cookie banner adjusted to the legal requirements of the specific law that applies to the company and the user.
You need to:
According to the law, it is a “prior consent” solution that allows you to block your essential cookies before obtaining explicit user consent.
The rules on obtaining consent are also embedded into the solution. The checkboxes will remain unchecked, all consents will be securely stored, and the users can withdraw consent easily, just as the EU cookie laws require.
Secure Privacy’s cookie solution has embedded the EU cookie laws - the GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive - in itself.
Our cookie management solution helps you:
Sign up for a free trial today and see how easy it is to manage cookies on your website with Secure Privacy.
