1. What’s a Cookie?

A cookie is a very simple small file, in fact a text, saved on the hard drive of an Internet user’s computer at the request of the server managing the website visited. It contains information on the navigation carried out on the pages of this site. The original idea is to facilitate subsequent use of the site by the same person. On the user’s computer, it is the browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc.) that manages cookies. It is he who receives the order to save them from the server (the principle of cookies is part of the HTTP protocol used for exchanges on the Web). It is he who records them and he is also the one who allows them to be controlled, according to the wishes of the Internet user. We can thus prohibit any registration of cookies (but access to many sites, or at least the use of their functionalities, is then impossible). Cookies can be classified into different categories: Strictly necessary cookies: without them, the site would not function properly (example: session cookies or to manage a shopping cart); performance cookies; Functionality cookies: they generally offer a better user experience (example: it retains the language used by the Internet user during his last visit); Targeting cookies: they mainly have a marketing utility with the aim of getting to know the user of the website better; Other cookies / Unknown cookies.