What are “cookies”?

The Cookies are IT data, especially text files, that are kept at the users’ devices and used to facilitate the webpage experience. These files allows for detecting users and appropriate display of the page, along with the user’s individual preferences. The Cookies usually include the name of the original webpage, time of keeping them in the device and a unique number.

What are the cookies used for?

The Cookies are used to suit the content of a webpage to the user’s preferences and optimize the webpage experience. They also create anonymous, aggregated statistics which help to understand how the user uses a webpage, which allows for better structure and content, excluding personal identification of that user.

What cookies are we using?

Generally, two kind of cookies are used: session and permanent. Session cookies are temporary files that are kept at the user’s device until they log out of a webpage or close the software (an Internet browser). Persistent cookies are kept at the user’s computer for a period defined within the file or until they are manually deleted.
Cookies used by partners of this webpage operator, especially by users, are subjects to their own privacy policy.
Cookies can be divided in relation to:

 

Types of cookies in relation to their necessity to realize a service:

1. Necessary - they are absolutely necessary for the proper function of the webpage or other functions that the user wants to use
2. Functional - they are important for the portal:
• they are used to enrich functions of the portal, without them the portal will work properly but will not be fit to the user,
• they are used to provide high level of functions; without preferences saved within a cookie the site may function lower, but should be satisfactory
• they are used for essential parts of the portal; blocking them will cause improper work of certain functions
3. Business - they are used to realize the business model, basing on which the portal is accessible, blocking them will not stop the whole portal, but may cause lowering the level of experience because the portal’s owner will not be able to gain subsidies from the service. These are e.g. advertisement cookies.

 

In relation to the period in which the cookie will be kept at the user’s device:

1. Session cookies - a cookie kept within using the browser (a session), after closing the browser, the cookie is deleted
2. Persistent cookies - it is not deleted after closing the browser and is kept at the user’s device for a definite or indefinite period, depending on settings of the portal’s owner

 

In relation to origins of the cookies management service:

1. First party cookies - a cookie placed directly by the webpage owner,
2. Third-party cookies - a cookie placed by external parties, whose components were called for by the webpage owner

Note: cookies can be called for by scripts, components included within the partner’s server in an other localization - other country or even a different law system. When the administrator calls for components from external system, the administrator can be a subject to different standard cookie policy than the privacy/cookies policy of the webpage’s administrator.

 

In relation to their purpose:

1. Portal configuration - they allow for choosing preferences and services within the portal
2. Security and stability - they allow for authenticity verification and optimization of the portal efficiency
3. Authentication - they allow for information, whether the user is logged in, so the webpage can show appropriate functions
4. Session state - they allow for saving information on how users use the webpage. The information is on the commonly used sites or errors shown at some of them. Cookies for saving the so-called “session state” help to improve services and comfort of using the site.
5. Processes - they allows for efficient using the webpage and its functions
6. Advertisements - they allow for displaying advertisements that are interesting for users and more valuable for publishers and advertisers, personalizing advertisements, they can be used to show advertisements outside of the domain
7. Localization - they allow for fitting the displayed information about the user’s localization
8. Analysis and research, viewing audit - they allow the portal owners better understanding of the users’ preferences and by the analysis improve their products and services. Usually, the owner or a research company gathers anonymous information and process data on trends without identification of the personal user data.

 

Harmlessincluding cookies:
necessary to proper functioning of the webpage
necessary to allowing the proper functionality of the webpage, but they do not trace the user.

Research - used to trace the user; but they do not include information allowing for personal identification

 

Do cookies include personal data?

Personal data from cookies can be gathered only to perform certain functions for the user. These data is encrypted in a way that no unauthenticated person has access to them.

 

Deleting cookies

Generally, browsers allow for cookies to be kept at the final device. Such preference can be changed to block the automatic management of cookies in the browser preferences. A user can be also informed each time cookies are sent. More details about means of the cookies management are available from the browser preferences.

Limiting the use of cookies can influence some functions of the webpage.