More Information About Cookies

What is a Cookie?

A cookie is a harmless text file that is stored in your browser when you visit almost any website. The purpose of the cookie is to enable the website to remember your visit when you navigate that page again. Although many people don’t know it, cookies have been in use for 20 years, since the first browsers for the World Wide Web appeared.

What is NOT a Cookie?

It is not a virus, nor a trojan, nor a worm, nor spam, nor spyware, nor does it open pop-up windows.

What Information Does a Cookie Store?

Cookies don’t usually store sensitive information about you, such as credit cards or bank details, photographs, your ID or personal information, etc. The data they store is of a technical nature, personal preferences, content personalization, etc.

The web server doesn’t associate you as a person but to your web browser. In fact, if you regularly browse with Internet Explorer and try to browse the same website with Firefox or Chrome, you’ll see that the website doesn’t realize you’re the same person because it’s actually associating with the browser, not the person.

What Types of Cookies Exist?

Technical Cookies: These are the most basic and allow, among other things, to know when a human or an automated application is browsing, when an anonymous user and a registered one is navigating, basic tasks for the operation of any dynamic website.
Analysis Cookies: They collect information about the type of browsing you are doing, the sections you use most, products consulted, time of use, language, etc.
Advertising Cookies: Display advertising based on your browsing, your country of origin, language, etc.

What are First-Party and Third-Party Cookies?

First-party cookies are those generated by the page you are visiting and third-party cookies are those generated by services or external providers such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.

What Happens if I Deactivate Cookies?

To help you understand the extent of deactivating cookies, we show you some examples:

You won’t be able to share content from that website on Facebook, Twitter or any other social network.
The website won’t be able to adapt the content to your personal preferences, as typically happens in online stores.
You won’t be able to access the personal area of that website, such as My Account, or My Profile or My Orders.
Online stores: It will be impossible to make purchases online, they will have to be done by phone or by visiting the physical store if there is one.
It will not be possible to personalize your geographical preferences such as time zone, currency or language.
The website will not be able to perform web analytics on visitors and traffic on the website, which will make it difficult for the website to be competitive.
You won’t be able to write on the blog, upload photos, post comments, rate or score content. The website will also not be able to know if you are a human or an automated application that publishes spam.
Targeted advertising cannot be displayed, which will reduce the website’s advertising revenue.
All social networks use cookies, if you deactivate them you won’t be able to use any social network.

Can Cookies be Deleted?

Yes. Not only delete, but also block, either generally or for a specific domain.

To delete cookies from a website you must go to your browser settings and there you can search for those associated with the domain in question and proceed to delete them.

Cookie Configuration for the Most Popular Browsers

Below we indicate how to access a specific cookie in the Chrome browser. Note: These steps may vary depending on the browser version:

Go to Settings or Preferences through the File menu or by clicking the customization icon that appears at the top right.
You will see different sections, click on the option Show advanced options.
Go to Privacy, Content Settings.
Select All cookies and site data.
A list of all cookies sorted by domain will appear. To make it easier to find cookies from a specific domain, enter the address partially or completely in the Search cookies field.
After applying this filter, one or more lines with the cookies from the requested website will appear on the screen. Now you just need to select it and press the X to proceed with its deletion.

To access the cookies settings in the Internet Explorer browser, follow these steps (they may vary depending on the browser version):

Go to Tools, Internet Options
Click on Privacy.
Move the slider to adjust the desired privacy level.

To access the cookies settings in the Firefox browser, follow these steps (they may vary depending on the browser version):

Go to Options or Preferences depending on your operating system.
Click on Privacy.
Under History, choose Use custom settings for history.
Now you will see the option Accept cookies, you can enable or disable it according to your preferences.

To access the cookies settings in the Safari for OSX browser, follow these steps (they may vary depending on the browser version):

Go to Preferences, then Privacy.
Here you will see the option Block cookies to adjust the type of blocking you want to perform.

To access the cookies settings in the Safari for iOS browser, follow these steps (they may vary depending on the browser version):

Go to Settings, then Safari.
Go to Privacy and Security, you will see the option Block Cookies to adjust the type of blocking you want to perform.

To access the cookies settings in the browser for Android devices, follow these steps (they may vary depending on the browser version):

Run the browser and press the Menu key, then Settings.
Go to Security and Privacy, you will see the option Accept cookies to enable or disable the checkbox.

To access the cookies settings in the browser for Windows Phone devices, follow these steps (they may vary depending on the browser version):