What are cookies?
Cookies are small text files that are downloaded to your device (PC, smartphone, tablet, etc.) when you visit a website. On each subsequent visit, cookies are sent to the website that generated them (first-party cookies) or to another site that recognizes them (third-party cookies).
Cookies allow a website to recognize a user's device. They serve various purposes, such as allowing you to navigate between pages efficiently, remembering your favorite sites, and generally improving your browsing experience. They also help to ensure that the advertising content shown online is more targeted to you and in line with your interests (marketing cookies or profiling cookies).
Cookies can have a limited duration of a single browsing session and, in this case, are automatically deactivated when the browser is closed; or they may have a predetermined expiration and, in this case, they will remain stored and active on the user's device until they expire, continuing to collect information during the different browsing sessions on the browser. There are also other information collection technologies with similar purposes to cookies that are stored on your device (such as pixels).
In this information, the term cookies is used to refer to cookies, as described above, and to any other collection technologies, with the aim of providing you with guidance on understanding what cookies and other similar technologies are, how and why they are used, what rights you have, and what choices you can make regarding their use.
Cookies and similar technologies – definitions
Cookies: small text files (generally composed of letters and numbers) that the websites ("first party") visited by the user or various websites or web servers ("third parties") insert and store within the browser used by the user for navigation on any terminal device capable of storing information.
Other technologies: Technologies that store data in your browser or device using locally shared objects or local storage, such as HTML 5 cookies and other web application software methods. These technologies work in all browsers. In some cases, the use of local storage cannot be fully managed by browsers, but requires management through specific tools.
Cookie categories
Cookies can be distinguished according to their purpose, duration and the holder of the cookie.
- Cookies distinguished by purpose are those that can be installed on the user's device:
