What are cookies?
Cookies help us to collect basic information on the users. This further allows the website to work. This process is generally done by creating a file known as cookies. Cookies are the small text files on their user. This allows the website to recognize its users when they visit the website again. Cookies also provide a smoother and more interactive experience to internet users. Cookies allow the website to remember your preference on sites you often visit. With the help of cookies, you can navigate between pages. Cookies ensure the advertisement visible on the website is relevant to your interest. Cookies also track your geographical location to improve your browsing experience.
How do we use cookies?
We collect cookies from our users not only to track their performance. We also provide enriched content to their specifications based on the cookies. Collecting cookies helps us to analyze how many visitors we have and how long they stay on our website. We use cookies to track and improve our performance by considering the user’s privacy. Some users allow us to sell advertising campaigns. These advertising campaigns are running based on their interests and reading behaviour. This helps to keep our content free to our readers. If the user decides to make a buy, then we keep goods and services offered by third parties. This provides some commission to us. Cookies help to track your visits to third-party sites. This will help us to ensure that the right amounts are being paid.
What type of cookies is there and which ones do we use??
Persistent cookies: There will be some time specified on each cookie. Based on that time the cookie will remain on a user’s device for that period. These cookies get activated when the user enters the site.
Session Cookies: The duration of this cookie depends on the browser. It persists until the browser is closed. Once the browser had closed all session cookies get deleted.
Based on the functionality, cookies are been classified as follows:
Strictly necessary cookies: When we disable this cookie, we can’t access services like registration or shopping baskets. This cookie will not gather information about you that could use for marketing
Examples of how we use ‘strictly necessary cookies include:
- Setting unique identifiers for each unique visitor, so site numbers get analysed.
- It allows you to sign into the independent website as a registered user.
Performance cookies: This cookie will improve the user experience. It collects statistical information like how many visitors visited the website. They don’t collect any personal information like names, email addresses, etc.
Examples of how we use “performance cookies” include:
- To gather data about how many visitors visited our site. To gather info about how much time they have spent on our website, or where the visitors come from.
- To compare our performance with other websites
With this cookie, we can find information about how the users found our website. We can find info about whether they have visited our website before or not. Through this, we can improve our services
Functionality Cookies:
This cookie collects usernames, language preferences, and regions. This type of information helps us to provide more personalized services. Some of the services include weather reports and traffic news. In other words, it helps us to customize the website based on the user.
Examples of how we use “functionality cookies” include:
- Storing your user preferences on Your Account page.
- Helps us to find if the user visits the site the first time. If yes, then some messages intended for the first time users are not displayed
Advertising and targeting cookies:
It can deliver advertisements more specific to the users. Through this, we can also limit the number of times the user sees an advertisement. This cookie also provides security in transactions.
The Two Main Ways used for Advertising and Targeting Cookies
- Helps us to provide targeted advertisements based on the user’s preferences.
- Helps us to provide advertisements based on online browsing activities. This type of collected information is also known as ‘Retargeting’
How do I control my cookies?
If we disable cookies or delete all cookies, any preference will get lost. In most cases, the website will also not work properly because of deleting the cookies. So most websites do not recommend turning off the cookies. You can control the cookies settings in the browser. We can do this by navigating to “option” or “preferences” on your browser. From there you can change the cookie settings. Some of the options include blocking third-party cookies, accepting cookies, or deleting them.