WHAT ARE COOKIES?
Cookies are basically harmless and are intended to ensure that the website works properly.
Marketing or tracking cookies are less harmless because they focus on collecting personal data of visitors.
For European visitors of your website, GDPR and the ePrivacy directive come into play.
When cookies collect data that can be traced back to individuals and collect personal data, the processing must comply to these laws.
WHY DO WE HATE THEM?
Most visitors experience cookie banners as very annoying.
You probably hate them, because it costs you time and money.
By doing it first time right, you can lean back, and let effective and efficient cookie management do the job.
TYPES OF COOKIES
It is important to know what types of cookies exist and within which category they fall in order to meet the requirements of the applicable legislation on the use of cookies.
Cookies can be roughly divided into three categories.
1. Functional (necessary) cookies:
These cookies are necessary for a website to function properly. Functional cookies are strictly necessary to be able to offer the visitors of your website the best experience. For instance, Google Analytics could be a functional cookie, as it’s being used to optimize the website based on visitors’ behavior. Functional cookies don’t collect data that can be traced back to individual visitors.
2. Statistics cookies:
Statistical cookies are used to analyze the visitor’s surfing behaviour in order to improve the website. For example: which buttons are clicked and which are not clicked, which page is viewed longer than another page, etc. Statistical cookies may or may not collect data which can be traced back to individuals.
3. Marketing cookies:
Marketing cookies have the purpose to track the visitor of a website and then offer targeted advertising to that person. In itself, placing a marketing cookie is not useful if it would be placed on one website. However, if the same marketing cookie is also used by other websites, a link arises between that visitor’s visits and his or her surfing behaviour to other websites. A profile of that visitor can be built and offered to marketeers via an online auction.
Marketing cookies might be used for giving visitors on the web the information about products they are looking for, but may also have undesirable side effects. According to the laws, at least the person involved must be informed about this collection and in most cases, permission is also needed.
DURATION TIME
Cookies can have different retention times.
Session cookies:
These cookies are temporary and expire once the subject closes his or her browser.
Persistent cookies:
This category encompasses all cookies that remain on the subject’s hard drive until they erase them, or their browser does, depending on the cookie’s expiration date. All persistent cookies have an expiration date written into their code, but their duration can vary. According to the ePrivacy Directive, they should not last longer than 12 months.
FIRST AND THIRD PARTY
First-party cookies:
First-party cookies are put on the device of the subject directly when visiting your website.
Third-party cookies:
These are the cookies that are placed on the subject’s device by a third party, like an advertiser or an analytics system. Using 3rd party cookies is usually to generate extra income through e.g. Google ads, Facebook etc.
CHOICE COOKIE MANAGEMENT
When choosing the right cookie management, your web pages will be periodically scanned for the use of cookies and an overview will be created that is available to visitors online. It will show the results in a cookie banner.
IMPLEMENTING COOKIE MANAGEMENT
It is possible to use your own wording in your cookie statement, but it is advisable to use the cookie descriptions and the cookie statement as offered by us, as they are well thought out.
The right cookie notice:
- Provides clear and specific information about your cookies
- Asks your users for consent before storing cookies
- Gives your users an option to opt-out of cookies
- Provides an option to subsequently change a choice
EXAMPLE OF A COOKIE BANNER:
Please note that the marketing checkbox is not pre-defined.
The GDPR requires that each user provides informed consent before tracking / marketing cookies are stored on their computer or other device.
This means: You must let visitors know from the get-go that your site uses cookies, in a clear and visible way.
You also need to provide details on how you use cookies and why.
What’s next
If you have additional questions about a cookies, just reach out to us we are here to help you, will do with pleasure.
Please use our contactform if you have additional questions regarding cookies.
Your first question is free of charge
Contactform
Vivenics
Visiting address:
Pivot Park
Kloosterstraat 9
5349 AB Oss, The Netherlands
Postal address:
PO Box 228
5340 AE Oss, The Netherlands
Email: gdprteam@vivenics.com
Office: +31 (0)88 8483 100
Privacy
Vivenics Privacy Policy