Good cookies vs. bad cookies

Not sure what cookies even are and how they work? Read more about how virtual cookies work here.

Good cookies

"Good cookies" are designed to make your internet browsing experience easier. This is especially true if, for example, you regularly visit a website and log into your user account there. Good cookies contain information about your language, page settings, e-mail address or name and help the website to recognise you as a frequent visitor and to display the website accordingly. Session cookies, for example, store your password for the website you have logged into. When the session ends, the cookie is also deleted.

Bad cookies

"Bad cookies" are mostly "tracking cookies" from third-party vendors whose goal is to market user data to play personalized ads. An example: you search for a winter coat on Google and look at winter coats on various websites and shops. Subsequently, you are repeatedly shown winter coats in advertising banners on other websites that actually have nothing to do with clothing. The advertisers have looked at the tracking cookies in your browser, so they know that you were just interested in a winter coat. If many websites and advertising banners place one or more cookies that are not deleted (persistent cookies), detailed profiles of users and the websites they visit can be created when the cookies are read.

Tip

Practical tip: Take a look at the cookies that have been stored on your computer (browser). Here you can find instructions for accessing your stored cookies in the Firefox and Chrome browsers.