You’ll need this if you…
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What it is
To explain how you use tracking technologies.
A Cookies Policy tells your users, customers, website visitors, and app users what cookies and other tracking technologies you use, why you use them, and how they can opt-out of or manage cookies. The Cookies Policy is a key way to give privacy notices about cookies and to show that someone has consented to the way you use tracking technologies.
Here’s what we include in your Cookies Policy:
- Some background information on cookies and tracking technologies
- Which types of cookies you use, how you use them, and why you use them
- Information about what rights people have regarding cookies, online tracking, and privacy
- How people may manage how you use cookies with them, including any opt-out rights they may have
- How someone can contact you with questions about the way you use cookies
Whether you’re using strictly necessary cookies to enable customer account login or to remember user preferences (like language choices), to reduce shopping cart abandonment, or to deliver targeted ads across the internet, your Cookies Policy is your legal agreement and disclosure about how you use this important technology.
A Cookies Policy is a common part of websites now, but that’s not the only place you use the policy. Your Cookies Policy applies to any mobile or web apps you provide and e-commerce sales, too.
Who needs it
When you need one
You use cookies on your website or app.
Cookies are used for many reasons, not just to deliver ads across the internet:
- Remembering items in a digital shopping cart
- Saving customer language preferences and other choices
- Recalling customer login details when they sign into their account
- Using analytics to track internet market data
- Retargeting ads to social media visitors
- Enabling blog commenting capabilities
- Installing tracking pixels from third-party services, like for Google Analytics or Facebook Ads
If any of these things sound like what you do, then you need a Cookies Policy. The policy isn’t a legal requirement everywhere, but many companies use them because cookies and how businesses use them have gotten a lot of attention from privacy regulators.
Pricing options
FAQs
How is a Cookies Policy different than a Privacy Policy?
A Privacy Policy covers many privacy topics, from what information you collect, how you collect it, when you use it, who you share it with, and what privacy rights your visitors and customers have. A Cookies Policy narrows in on just what tracking technologies you use, why you use them, how they impact your customers and visitors, and what rights people have when it comes to cookies and other tracking technologies.
Sometimes a Cookies Policy and a Privacy Policy are combined, actually. Since cookies and similar tracking technologies have been such a big focus of privacy regulators and are a hot topic, it’s a good idea to have a standalone Cookies Policy. It makes it easier for your visitors and customers to find information on the tracking technologies you use and for you to show that you’ve been transparent and gotten proper consent to use them.
What's the purpose of a Cookies Policy?
A Cookies Policy tells your users, customers, website visitors, and app users what cookies and tracking technologies you use, why you use them, and how they can opt-out or manage those technologies. A Cookies Policy is a key way to give privacy notices about cookies and tracking technologies and to show that someone has consented to the way you use them.
What's included in a Cookies Policy?
Here’s what we include in your Cookies Policy:
- Some background information on cookies and tracking technologies
- Which types of cookies you use, how you use them, and why you use them
- Information about what rights people have regarding cookies, online tracking, and privacy
- How people may manage how you use cookies with them, including any opt-out rights they may have
- How someone can contact you with questions about the way you use cookies
What are cookies anyway?
A cookie is a small piece of text sent to your browser by a website you visit. It helps the site remember information about your visit, which can make it easier to visit the site again and make the site more useful to you. There are several types of cookies.
Functional cookies (sometimes called “strictly necessary cookies”)
Cookies used for functionality allow users to interact with a software service, app, or site in fundamental ways. For example, remembering the person’s choice of language, recalling account and login details so the person can use their account, and keeping information about a user’s session on the site or platform, such as what the person put into their digital shopping cart.
Security
Cookies that are used for security authenticate users, prevent fraud, and protect users as they interact with your services. Some cookies are used to authenticate users, helping ensure that only the actual owner of an account can access that account. Other cookies are used to prevent spam, fraud, and abuse, such as a cookie that remembers a browsing session to ensure requests are made by the user and not by other sites. These cookies prevent malicious sites from acting without a user’s knowledge by pretending to be that user.
Analytics
Cookies used for analytics help collect data to understand how users interact with a website, digital platform, or app. These insights allow the company to improve content, build better features, and improve the user’s experience. For example, Google Analytics helps website and app owners understand how people engage with their services and uses a set of cookies to collect information and report site usage statistics without personally identifying individual visitors.
Advertising
Some cookies are used to track people across the internet to deliver targeted ads to them. For example, when you use Facebook Ads you install a tracking pixel on your site and that technology tracks a website visitor so your ads can be shown to them later. These are the cookies that get most of the attention because they raise questions about privacy.
Is a Cookies Policy the same thing as a cookies banner or pop-up?
A Cookies Policy is different from a cookies banner or pop-up that asks for consent to use cookies or allows a person to manage their cookies preferences. But these two things do work together. Your Cookies Policy provides the details about your use of cookies and gives a fair bit of information. A Cookies banner or pop-up gives a short notice to a person that you use cookies, gives a link to your Privacy Policy and Cookies Policy, and ideally allows the person how to manage how cookies are used with them (for example, by opting out of some types of cookies if they wish).
What rights do people have to opt-out of cookies?
Depending on where a person resides, they may have specific rights to opt-out of cookies. Under the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), individuals have the right to opt-out of some types of cookies and other tracking technologies. So, if GDPR applies to you, your website should have a Cookies Policy. It should also have a cookies banner or pop-up that allows the person to opt-out of cookies or manage how they are used.
In Canada, we take a less strict approach. However, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has given some guidance that shows how online behavioural advertising is treated generally in Canada.