Companies that want to get to know their users and analyze their behavior can use cookies to do so. It’s a good way to improve your offers and make sure your users get the information that benefits them the most. If you use cookies on your website, you have to have a cookie policy where you inform about how you use cookies.
Most websites use cookies, i.e. small text files with information that is stored in browsers. By saving cookies in the browser, the user’s experience of the site becomes smoother. It’s because of cookies that users can collect products in a shopping cart knowing they’ll remain until the next time they visit the site. It’s also because of cookies that users only need to log in to sites once and choose to keep themselves logged in even after they’ve closed the browser.
This is what your cookie policy should contain
Your cookie policy has to be clear and easy to understand. Users have to be able to quickly understand what it means to accept or not accept cookies. Simply put, what the consequences are for each choice. In addition, your policy has to include:
- what cookies are. The user has to be able to quickly understand what cookies are and how they work.
- how and why you use cookies. You don’t have to get into details, but should give an overall, clear explanation of which type of cookies you use and what the purpose for using them is. As a separate paragraph in this section, you can also include whether you use cookies from a third party, for example if you use Google Analytics.
- how the user can disable cookies. The user should both receive information about how they deactivates cookies and what happens when they do so. You can also link to other pages where the user can follow instructions on how to disable cookies. In this section, you can also explain how users delete the cookies that have already been saved.
