With the Black Friday craze, the craze for acceptance of Cookie Policy on websites is accentuated

This week I took advantage of Black Friday on some websites, and came across the, increasingly evident, trend of customization of cookie bars on websites.

Maria Cunha
Nov 30 2021 • 2 min reading
With the Black Friday craze, the craze for acceptance of Cookie Policy on websites is accentuated
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Cookies are small files sent by websites and stored in your browser (chrome, safari, firefox, edge) that store your preferences. Nowadays, there are numerous sites that ask you to accept or refuse the installation of these small files that allow any site you browse to remember your preferences for a certain period. These cookies can also be used to collect statistical data about your browsing experience on the sites.

In summary, and to make you feel clear, there are different types of cookies, with different functionalities:

  1. Strictly necessary cookies - which must be active in order for the site to function;
  2. Analytical or performance cookies - these cookies have an accessory nature and collect statistical information in order to help the owner of the site analyze the use of the site and better understand the involvement of its visitors with the websites (e.g. google analytics);
  3. Functionality cookies - related to features such as: sharing on social networks; or ReCAPTCHA (security) associated with forms on the site, among others;
  4. Third-party cookies - have an accessory nature and once accepted, may be used by other companies to build a profile about your interests and show you relevant ads on other websites.

So that when you enter a website to do your Christmas shopping, you can quickly and consciously decide whether to accept or reject cookies, I leave here the biggest advantage and disadvantage of "blind" acceptance of them.

The biggest advantage of accepting cookies on a site is that it is possible to give you a more personalized experience when browsing the site, based on your location (e.g. language), faster form filling, and even be able to "show" you other information that might interest you based on those same preferences.

In terms of risks or disadvantages, I can summarize in two: the security risk, particularly when sharing the same computer / browser by several users and the "invasion of ads and suggestions" related to those preferences that you allowed to store.

For companies, there is the warning that, according to European Union guidelines, sites cannot just say they use cookies and store them. It is therefore imperative to look at this issue and provide your website with the functionality of different levels of acceptance/rejection of cookies in an informed way to your visitors.

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