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 purpose of the cookie is to enable the website to remember your visit when you browse that page again. Although many people don’t know it, cookies have been used for 20 years, ever since the first browsers appeared for the World Wide Web.

What a cookie is NOT?

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

What information does a cookie store?

Cookies usually do not store sensitive information about you, such as credit card details or banking information, photographs, your national ID (DNI), or personal information, etc. The data they keep is technical in nature, personal preferences, content personalisation, etc.

The web server does not associate you as a person; it associates your web browser. In fact, if you usually browse with Internet Explorer and then try to browse the same website with Firefox or Chrome, you’ll see that the website doesn’t realise you are the same person because, in reality, it is associating the browser, not the person.

What types of cookies are there?

• Technical cookies: These are the most basic and allow, among other things, knowing when a human or an automated application is browsing, when an anonymous and a registered user is browsing, and basic tasks for the functioning of any dynamic website.
• Analytics cookies: They collect information about the type of browsing you are doing, the sections you use most, products you have consulted, time of day, language, etc.
• Advertising cookies: They display advertising based on your browsing, your country of origin, language, etc.

What are first-party cookies and third-party cookies?

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

What happens if I disable cookies?

To help you understand the extent of what can happen when you disable cookies, we show you a few 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 usually happens with online shops.
• You won’t be able to access that website’s personal area, for example My account, or My profile or My orders.
• Online shops: You won’t be able to make online purchases; they will have to be by telephone or by visiting the physical shop if you have one.
• It won’t be possible to personalise your geographic preferences such as time zone, currency or language.
• The website won’t be able to carry out web analytics on visitors and traffic on the website, which will make it harder for the website to be competitive.
• You won’t be able to write on the blog, upload photos, publish comments, rate or score content. The website also won’t be able to know whether you are a human or an automated application that posts spam.
• Sectorised advertising can’t be shown, which will reduce the website’s advertising revenue.
• All social networks use cookies; if you disable them, you won’t be able to use any social network.

Can cookies be deleted?

Yes. Not only can they be deleted; they can also be blocked, either generally or for a specific domain.

To delete cookies from a website you need to go to your browser settings, where you can search for those associated with the relevant domain and proceed with their deletion.

Cookie settings for the most popular browsers

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

1. Go to Settings or Preferences via the File menu or by clicking the customisation icon that appears at the top right.
2. You will see different sections; click the Show advanced options option.
3. Go to Privacy, Content settings.
4. Select All cookies and site data.
5. A list will appear with all the cookies sorted by domain. To make it easier to find the cookies for a particular domain, enter part or all of the address in the Search cookies field.
6. After applying this filter, one or more lines will appear on screen with the cookies for the requested website. Now you just need to select it and press the X to proceed with deletion.

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

1. Go to Tools, Internet Options
2. Click Privacy.
3. Move the slider to set the level of privacy you want.

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

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

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

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

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

1. Go to Settings, then Safari.
2. Go to Privacy and Security; you’ll see the Block cookies option so you can adjust the type of blocking you want to perform.

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

1. Launch the browser and press the Menu key, then Settings.
2. Go to Security and Privacy; you’ll see the Accept cookies option to enable or disable the checkbox.

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

1. Open Internet Explorer, then More, then Settings
2. Now you can enable or disable the Allow cookies checkbox.