What Are Internet Cookies?

Types of internet cookies

First-party cookies

First-party cookies are directly stored by the web page or domain when you visit. First-party Internet cookies allow websites to collect data, remember settings, and other functions that provide people with a quality and unique user experience.

Websites can’t typically use first-party cookies to track you from one site to another. Instead, they store information like your sign-in and language settings for just that domain.

E-commerce sites like Amazon use first-party cookies. Your web browser saves the information to your computer. It’s saved under the ‘amazon.com’ domain. When you disable first-party cookies, you have to sign in for every browsing session.

Session cookies

A session cookie can’t be sent to any machine other than the one that generated the specific Internet cookie. 

Web browsers typically delete session cookies after you close them. A session cookie doesn’t have an expiration date assigned to it.

E-commerce web pages typically use session cookies to save your shopping cart. When you log in from the same device, session cookies from your web browser will remember the items in your cart.

Persistent cookies

Persistent cookies are stored on your device to help remember settings, info, preferences, and sign-on credentials that you were previously permitted to save. It is meant to create a convenient and quick website user experience. Persistent cookies have an expiration date issued to them by the web server and are destroyed after they expire. The expiration date can be a day, or it can be a year. 

One of the most common persistent cookies is a Google Analytics cookie. It remembers what you’ve done on previous web pages and keeps up with interactions with the website.

Persistent cookies delete themselves when they hit their expiration date. Or, you can remove them manually.

Browser cookies

A browser cookie, or HTTP cookie, is a string of data or code that your web browser stores when you visit a web page. The short snippet of data contains a wide variety of important information about you.

A web browser uses cookies to track, personalize, and save information during every session. Their web server will send your identifying information to your web browser when you return. E-commerce sites are the most significant users of browser cookies. However, overall personalization is one of the goals, too.

Zombie cookies

Zombie cookies give web page tracking companies the power to retrieve information so that they can continue to track your online activity.

Zombie cookies have one primary purpose. It is to store your personal info for online marketing activities. The data is not stored on your computer. Zombie cookies are not really cookies at all.

The information that Zombie cookies can hold is endless. And, if you do try to delete them, they will revive themselves. Hence their name, Zombie. The law is catching up with the invasions to user privacy and the malicious use of private information. 

California has become the first state to make Zombie cookies illegal and hold the invaders accountable by making them subject to class action lawsuits.

Social media cookies

You’ve experienced social media cookies, even if you never used them. They are cookies that connect a web page to a third-party social media platform. 

For example, if you’ve recently created a new account on any site, you’ve likely run across the option to log in through your Google or Facebook accounts. Many social media cookies are set up through plugins, widgets, and the share button.

Social media cookies contain all the information your social media platforms have access to. It’s safer to create original logins for all websites than to use your social media cookies to link them all. 

When you use a social media widget or share button, they are getting way more of your information than if you just created a new account from scratch.

Pop-ups

The pop-up refers to the actual banner that comes up on your screen to inform you that the web page uses cookies, and they pretend to ask for your permission. The truth is that most sites use cookies to do their job before ever obtaining consent.

Government regulation is catching up with the invasive nature of pop-ups. The European Union (EU) has taken the first steps towards protecting user data. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is considered the most robust data privacy and security law globally.

Pop-up cookies collect the same information as other cookies do. Your habits, your zip code, and additional information they find useful for marketing purposes. Pop-up cookies are used for nefarious purposes, too. Always be aware of what and who you’re giving cookie consent to.

Magic cookies

Magic cookies aren’t magic. They contain tiny information bits that travel from your web browser to a web server. The name Magic Cookie is derived from a fortune cookie because a magic cookie has an embedded message. 

A magic cookie is a token used to track, authenticate, and inform a client in a system about the presence of a server. It might be an identification token or a password that activates a specific function. They don’t contain readable data, just path info. 

 It is referred to as a magic cookie because the data is only known to the software, not the user.

How to block cookies in your browser

Blocking internet cookies gets tricky because cookies are sometimes helpful. However, you can disable them.

Also, it is helpful to understand that a VPN doesn’t hide your web browser search history. Nor does it prevent your web browser from logging the session. You can manually delete your search history from your browser or turn on private browsing.