What is a cookie?
A cookie is a harmless text file stored in your browser each time you visit a website. It allows a website to remember your last visit the next time you browse that page. Although not many people know, cookies have been used for 20 years, ever since the first browsers for the World Wide Web appeared.
What IS NOT a cookie?
It is not a virus, a trojan, a worm, spam, or spyware and it does not open pop-up windows.
What data does a cookie store?
Cookies do not usually store sensitive information about you, like credit cards, bank details, photographs, your ID number or personal information, etc. Cookies store technical data, personal preferences, content customisation, etc.
The web server does not register you as a person, it registers your web browser. In fact, if you often browse the internet with Internet Explorer and then try to browse the same page with Firefox or Chrome, you will see that the website does not recognise you because it registers the browser, not the person.
What kind of cookies exist?
- Technical cookies: they are the most basic kind and allow us, among other things, to know whether a human or an automated application is browsing and whether an anonymous or a registered user is browsing, basic tasks for any dynamic web to work properly.
- Analytic cookies: they collect information about what kind of browsing you are doing, what sections you use the most, what products you have viewed, time zone of use, language, etc.
- Advertising cookies: they display advertisements according to your browsing, country of origin, language, etc.
What are own and third party cookies?
Own cookies are generated by the website you are visiting and third party cookies are generated by external services or providers like Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.
What happens if I deactivate the cookies?
To make sure you fully understand the implications of disabling cookies, we would like to show you a few examples:
- You will not be able to share the content of the website on Facebook, Twitter or any other social network.
- The website will not be able to adapt the content to your personal preferences, as it usually occurs for online shopping.
- You will not be able to access that website´s personal area, such as My account, My profile or My orders.
- E-shops: You will not be able to shop online, you will have to order by phone or, by physically going to the store if there is one.
- You will not be able to customise your geographic preferences, such as time zone, currency or language.
- The website will not be able to analyse their visits and user traffic, which in turn makes the website less competitive.
- You will not be able to write in blogs, upload pictures, publish comments, evaluate or rate content. The website will not be able to tell whether you are human or an automated application which publishes spam.
- You will not be exposed to customised publicity, which will reduce the advertising income of the website.
- All social media sites use cookies, if you deactivate them, you will not be able to use any social media websites.
Can you delete cookies?
Yes, you can delete and also block cookies (both generally and specifically for a website).
To delete cookies from a website you must go to your browser’s settings and once you are there, you can search for the ones associated to the domain you want to delete cookies from.
Cookie settings for the most popular browsers
Steps to access a precise cookie from Chrome browser. Note: these steps may vary based on the version of your browser:
- To manage cookies in Chrome, click the wrench button and select Settings from the drop-down menu.
- The available settings display on a new tab. Click Under the Hood in the left pane.
- In the Privacy section, in the right pane, click Content settings.
- The Content Settings pane displays. In the Cookies section, click All cookies and site data
- The Cookies and Site Data pane displays, showing you how many cookies have been saved for each site that saved cookies on your computer. To delete an individual cookie, select one of the websites. A button displays for each cookie saved for that site. Click one of the buttons
- Information about the cookie displays, including when the cookie expires. To remove this cookie, click Remove.
- For more information about the cookies policy, visit the following link: Google Chrome
Steps to access cookie settings from the Internet Explorer browser (these steps may vary based on the version of your browser):
- To manage cookies in Internet Explorer, click the gear button and select Internet options from the drop-down menu
- The Internet Options dialog box displays. To view and delete individual cookies, click Settings in the Browsing history section
- In the Temporary Internet Files and History Settings dialog box, click View files.
- Windows Explorer opens displaying the contents of the Temporary Internet Files folder. Scroll down until you find files labelled as cookies. You can select one or more cookie files and delete them either by right-clicking on them and selecting Delete or by pressing the Delete key. To permanently delete them, hold down the Shift key while you press Delete.
- For more information about the cookies policy, visit the following link: Internet Explorer
Steps to access cookie settings from Firefox browser (these steps may vary based on the version of your browser):
- To manage cookies in Firefox, select Options from the Firefox menu.
- Click the Privacy button at the top of the Options dialog box and then click the “remove individual cookies” link
- The Cookies dialog box displays showing a list of all the websites that have put cookies on your computer. Click the arrow next to a site name to view a list of the individual cookies placed by that site. To delete an individual cookie, select the cookie in the list, and click Remove Cookie.
- For more information about the cookies policy, visit the following link: Mozilla Firefox
Steps to access cookie settings from Safari for iOS X browser (these steps may vary based on the version of your browser):
- To manage cookies in Safari, click the gear button and select Preferences from the drop-down menu.
- The Privacy dialog box displays. To delete cookies from specific, individual websites, click Privacy on the toolbar and click Details for cookies and other website data.
- A dialog box displays a list of all websites that have placed cookies on your computer. To delete cookies from a specific website, select that website in the list and click Remove. To remove all cookies in the list, click Remove All. When you are finished, click Done to close the dialog box.
- For more information about the cookies policy, visit the following link: iOS X Safari
Steps to access cookie settings from Safari for IOS browser (these steps may vary based on the version of your browser):
- Go to Settings, then Safari
- Go to Privacy & Security and you will see the option Block cookies and you can adjust this to your preferences.
- For more information about the cookies policy, visit the following link: iOS Safari
Steps to access cookie settings from Android devices (these steps may vary based on the version of your browser):
- Run the browser and go to Menu, then Settings
- On the Settings interface, tap Privacy under the ADVANCED section.
- Tap the CLEAR BROWSING DATA button at the bottom of the interface.
- On the Clear browsing data pop up box, tap to check the Clear cookies, site data checkbox.
- Finally, tap the Clear button to clear the selected cookies options.
- For more information about the cookies policy, visit the following link: Google Android
Steps to access cookie settings from Windows Phone devices (these steps may vary based on the version of your browser):
- Open Internet Explorer, tap on the ellipses (…) at the bottom right and click Settings
- Now you will be able to activate or deactivate cookies by checking the box Allow cookies on my phone.
- For more information about the cookies policy, visit the following link: Windows Phone
