WHAT IS A COOKIE?

A cookie is a harmless text file that is stored in your browser when you visit almost any web page. The usefulness of the cookie lies in the fact that the website is able to remember your visit when you come back to the page. Although many people are not aware, cookies have been in use for 20 years, from when the first World Wide Web browsers appeared.

WHAT A COOKIE IS NOT?

It is not a virus, trojan horse, worm, spam or spyware and it does not open pop-up windows.

WHAT INFORMATION DOES A COOKIE STORE?

Cookies do not usually store sensitive information about you like your credit cards, bank details, photographs, ID or personal information. They store technical data, personal preferences, personalised content, etc.

WHAT TYPE OF COOKIES EXIST?

• Technical cookies: They are the basic ones and allow us to know when a human being or a robot is browsing the web, when an anonymous or a logged-in user is browsing and to carry out basic tasks for the running of any dynamic web page.
• Analytical cookies: They collect information about your type of browsing, your most viewed pages, products visited, usage time, language, etc.
• Advertisingcookies: They show advertising based on your browsing habits, country of origin, languages, etc./li>

WHAT ARE OWN COOKIES AND THIRD PARTY COOKIES?

Own cookiesare those generated by the website you are visiting and third party cookies are generated by external services or providers like Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.

WHAT HAPPENS IF I DISABLE COOKIES?

To understand the effect of disabling cookies, here are a few examples:

• You cannot share content from that website on Facebook, Twitter or any other social network.
• The website cannot adapt content to your personal preferences, as often happens with online stores.
• Online stores: It will be impossible to make purchases online, you will have to phone or visit the shop.
• It won’t be possible to customise your geographic preferences like your time zone, currency or language.
• The website will not be able to perform analytics on website visitors and traffic, which makes it difficult for the website to be competitive.
• You won’t be able to write on the blog, upload photos, post comments or rate content. The website won’t know if you are a human or a robot that is publishing spam.
• You cannot display sectorised advertising, thus the advertising revenue from the website is reduced.
• All social networks use cookies. If you disable them you won’t be able to use any social networks.

CAN I DELETE COOKIES?

Yes. You cannot only delete them but you can also block them, in general or for a specific domain in particular.

To delete cookies from a site you must go to your browser settings and there you can find the cookies associated to the domain in question.

COOKIES SETTINGS FOR THE MOST POPULAR BROWSERS

You will find below how to access a certain cookie from your Chrome browser. Note: these steps may vary depending on your browser version:

1. Go Settings or Preferences by using the File menu or by clicking the customisation icon in the top right.
2. You will see different options, click on Show advanced options.
3. Go to Privacy, Content settings. Select All cookies and site data.
4. A list of the cookies will appear ordered by domain. To make it easier to find the cookies on a particular domain, enter part or the full URL in the ‘Search cookies’ field.
5. After applying this filter, one or various lines with the cookies of the requested website will appear on the screen. Now you just have to select it and click X to remove it.

To access the cookies configuration on Internet Explorer follow these steps (they may vary depending on the version of the browser):

1. Go to Tools > Internet Options.
2. Click on Privacy.
3. Move the slider to adjust the privacy level.

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

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

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

1. Go to Preferences, then Privacy.
2. Here you will see the option to Block cookies so you can set what type of blocking you want to do.

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

1. Go to settings, then Safari.
2. Go to Privacy and Security, you will see the option to Block cookies so you can set what type of blocking you want to do.

To access the cookies configuration on Android, follow these steps (they may vary depending on the version of the browser):

1. un the web browser and press the Menu key, then Settings.
2. Vaya a Seguridad y Privacidad, verá la opción Aceptar cookies para que active o desactive la casilla.

To access the cookies configuration on a Windows Phone, follow these steps (they may vary depending on the version of the browser):

1. Open Internet Explorer, then More, then Settings..
2. You can now enable or disable the Allow Cookies box.