What do we really mean when we talk about “cookies”? To start on the right foot, let’s clear up a common misunderstanding.
When we say “cookies,” we’re actually using a bit of shorthand. A cookie, strictly speaking, is a small file stored in a visitor’s browser. But today, it’s just one of many ways to collect data.
In reality, many tools can track a visitor’s activity on a website:
scripts that send information to third-party services (like Google or Meta),
small bits of code that remember a visitor’s behavior (like their language preference or which pages they viewed),
or even more invisible techniques that can identify a device without storing anything at all.
👉 In short, the word “cookies” is used as a general term for all these data collection mechanisms that are regulated by data protection laws — like the GDPR in Europe, the UK GDPR, or the CCPA in California.
These are the ones that must be subject to user consent when the law requires it.
☝️ In the next articles of this series, we’ll mostly use the terms “services” or “vendors” to describe these trackers, to better reflect the variety of data collection methods out there.