MY ONE BLOGby Manishdai
Software Development

What is Web Cookie?

Quick answer

A small text file a website stores in your browser to remember information such as login status, preferences, or shopping cart contents.

Web Cookie, explained

Cookies were invented in 1994 by Lou Montulli, an engineer at Netscape, to let websites remember visitors between page loads. First-party cookies are set by the site you are visiting and handle things like keeping you signed in. Third-party cookies are set by other domains, such as advertising networks, and have been widely used to track people across many websites.

Privacy laws such as the GDPR and the EU ePrivacy rules generally require consent for non-essential cookies, which is why many sites show cookie banners. Several browsers, including Safari and Firefox, block third-party cookies by default. For example, an online store needs a cookie to remember items in a visitor's cart, but it should ask permission before loading advertising trackers. Businesses increasingly rely on first-party data instead.

Related terms

First-Party Data

Information a business collects directly from its own customers and audience, such as purchases, sign-ups, and website activity.

GDPR

General Data Protection Regulation: the European Union's law governing how organizations collect, use, and protect personal data.

Personally Identifiable Information

Any information that can identify a specific person, alone or combined with other data, such as a name, email, or ID number.

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