You remember the story of Hansel and Gretel where Hansel leave a trail of bread or cookie crumbs along the path so they could go back to their home? Well, they probably got the concept from the renowned children story.
Over the years, cookies have become an essential element of the internet. Even have become the most used method in identifying the users online, providing a personalized browsing experience.
But users’ constant concern for privacy and the introduction of laws like the GDPR urges website owners to educate people on what a cookie really is, what it is used for and how it works.
Third-Party Cookies Explained
Cookies are bits of information that websites drop on your computer when you visit them. They help websites remember about you through your browser. Websites may use cookies to record your latest online activity and your preferences.
Cookies may track log-in details, website visits, and products checked and added to the shopping cart. Even after you leave the website, cookies are able to remember your information and even store your data.
Because of their inherent capability, cookies are used to carry out advertising processes like customer profiling and retargeting. These cookies are called third-party cookies.
Let us understand further by looking closely at the definition.
What are Third-Party Cookies
Third-party cookies are cookies created by other websites that are not the website you are visiting. These are cookies integrated by a different domain name other than the domain name or website from which the cookie is encountered.
Third-party cookies are usually placed on a website through scripts or tags for advertising purposes. By adding the third-party website’s tags to a web page, advertisers can track a user across different platforms they visit.
How Third-Party Cookies Work
Third-party cookies work as a tracker that follows users as they continue to surf different web pages. Even if you close the web browser after surfing, the cookies are not totally eliminated. It can follow you to other websites you visit unless you delete your browsing history.
Third-party cookies are commonly used for online advertising. They are used by advertisers, marketers, and social media platforms who want to promote brands, drive conversions, and grow the business.
Whenever you visit a website, if it is serving you ads, you can immediately tell that it is running third-party cookies. Once you visit a website that has third party cookies, it will automatically serve you ads about the previous sites you visited or even ads that you previously clicked.
You can view third-party cookies at work when you visit a website, say, an eCommerce website. You browse some of its products but you decide not to buy yet.
A few days later, you log in to Facebook. You notice an ad about the eCommerce website you once visited before. You wonder why they are so updated on you that they know what you did online the last time.
That’s how clever the third-party cookies algorithm is.
Third-Party Cookies vs First-Party Cookies
First and third-party cookies have similar purposes which are to track user behavior. But they mainly differ on who created the cookies and how they collect and use data.
A first-party cookie is a normal cookie set or created by the website you are currently visiting. It is directly stored by the website you visit.
This type of cookie is what allows website owners to collect analytics data and execute other useful duties that provide a good user experience.
With first-party cookies, a user is usually required to sign in to the website. The browser then saves the data file to the user’s computer under the domain or website being visited. If the first-party cookies are blocked, the user would have to sign in every time they visit the website.
A third-party cookie, on the other hand, is a javascript embedded cookie from a third-party website. Basically, it is a cookie created by a different website or domain and not from the website you are currently visiting. It is set by a third-party server.
Are Third-Party Cookies Dangerous
With a lot of people requiring data privacy from website owners, are third-party cookies really bad? Are they a security risk?
Just like with normal cookies, third-party cookies are not really bad. The purpose of the creation of third-party cookies is not to pose security risks but to provide a good user experience by serving relevant information to users through ads.
Third-party cookies are very helpful not only to business owners who want to close a sale but even to customers who might be looking for something. With third-party cookies, businesses will be able to determine the needs of the customers and provide the appropriate solution to their problems.
Yet while third-party cookies may be helpful to some, there are some users who see them as a threat to their privacy. Some people find the cookies creepy following them anywhere they go online.
A lot of people complain about third-party cookies as an invasion of their privacy. It led to the creation of privacy laws like CCPA and GDPR which allow users to have control over their browsing activities, especially on the cookies tracking them.
Under the protection of the existing privacy laws, users now have an option whether to allow cookies to follow them or not when visiting a certain website. Users are also protected against potential data breaches.
Third-Party Cookies Disabled? Check Your Browser
While browsers like Firefox and Safari automatically block the third-party cookies, Google Chrome still enables these cookies by default although they have already announced to block those cookies in 2022.
To restrict third-party cookies from tracking your online activity, you can change your Google Chrome browser settings by going to Privacy and Security. There you have the option to block all cookies or third-party cookies only.
Bottomline
Third-party cookies benefit both advertisers and customers. Understanding how it works in advertising technology is critical to getting a better hold on online advertising and privacy.