What are cookies?
Author: Domeny.ForSale editorial team Published
In brief: Cookies are small pieces of data stored by your browser at the request of the website you visit. They help keep you logged in and remember settings or shopping basket contents, but they can also be used to analyse visits and track activity for advertising purposes. Not all cookies require consent — what matters is their actual purpose, not their name.
How do cookies work?
When you open a website, its server may ask your browser to store a cookie containing a name and a value, such as a session identifier. A session links a user’s successive actions while using a website. With subsequent requests to the relevant server, the browser sends matching cookies, allowing the website to recognise that the visit is continuing.
Imagine shopping in an online store: you add a product to your basket and move to another category. A cookie may contain an identifier that lets the store find your basket saved on its server. The cookie itself therefore does not have to store a list of products, your name or your address.
A cookie is not a program and does not execute code on its own. Nor does it give a website unrestricted access to files on your computer. However, it may contain an identifier linked to an account or activity history, so the absence of a person’s name in its contents does not automatically mean anonymity.
What types of cookies might you encounter?
Cookies can be classified by purpose, storage duration and who sets them. These classifications describe different characteristics: a cookie can be persistent, used for advertising and associated with an external provider at the same time.
The most useful classification for users is by purpose:
- Essential — enable a function you request, such as maintaining a session after you log in or supporting a shopping basket.
- Preference — remember choices such as the language or interface appearance. Whether they require consent depends on their specific use.
- Analytics — help measure website usage, for example by identifying which pages are visited. They should not automatically be considered essential.
- Advertising — are used for purposes including tailoring advertisements, measuring their effectiveness and combining information about activity.
Session cookies are intended to last for the browser session, while persistent cookies have a specified expiry date. However, a browser’s session restore feature may also retain session cookies, so closing the window does not always mean they are deleted.
First-party cookies are associated with the domain of the website you visit, while third-party cookies are associated with another domain, such as that of an embedded advertisement provider. Browsers restrict third-party cookies in different ways. Blocking them does not eliminate all tracking methods: data can also be collected through scripts, user accounts or other mechanisms.
Why do websites ask for consent?
In Poland, the rules for storing information on a device and accessing it arise from legislation on privacy in electronic communications. If personal data is processed, the GDPR, or General Data Protection Regulation, also matters. These are two related but separate issues.
As a general rule, cookies that are not essential for transmitting a communication or providing a service expressly requested by the user require prior consent. Consent should be freely given, specific, informed and capable of being withdrawn. Simply browsing a website does not amount to informed acceptance of every use of cookies.
A consent panel should allow you to understand the purposes and make a choice. Rejecting advertising cookies is not the same as blocking cookies needed to log in. Nor does the label “essential” settle the matter: what counts is what a particular cookie actually does.
This is a general explanation, not individual legal advice. If you run a website, confirm the current requirements in the applicable legislation and official materials from UODO, Poland’s Personal Data Protection Office, and UKE, Poland’s Office of Electronic Communications; also check how the tools you use actually work.
How can you manage cookies in practice?
You have two places to control them: the website’s consent panel and your browser settings. The first lets you choose processing purposes for a particular website; the second restricts cookie storage or deletes cookies already stored.
If you want to limit tracking without making shopping or logging in more difficult:
- In the website’s panel, reject optional cookies or switch off the advertising and analytics categories.
- In your browser’s privacy settings, check tracking protection and how third-party cookies are handled.
- If a website is not working properly, first delete only that website’s data rather than clearing everything.
- If you are changing consent you previously gave, reopen the website’s privacy settings and withdraw the relevant permissions.
Deleting cookies may log you out, empty your basket or reset your preferences. It does not, however, automatically delete data that a company has already collected on its servers. Private browsing mode does not make you anonymous to the services you visit either — its main purpose is to limit the data left in your browser after the session ends.
The next time you visit an online store, open the banner settings instead of immediately choosing “Accept all”. Check which options relate to the store’s operation and which concern measurement and advertising, and make a separate decision for each of these purposes.
See also: What is 2FA?
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