Cookies are essential for providing a comfortable online experience. Some are mandatory for a website to function properly, while others improve the user experience. Recent data and privacy protection laws require website owners to control their cookies. Certain tools can help speed up the process, e.g., a cookie checker is a handy tool for website owners to get started on becoming compliant with applicable regulations.
Cookies are essential for running an online business
Almost every website on the internet runs on cookies. Cookies make the browsing experience smoother and more useful for users by storing data about their preferences. Cookies can be categorized into four groups: Necessary cookies, preference cookies, statistics cookies, and marketing cookies. Statistics and marketing cookies make up the majority of cookies on websites, e.g., if you use Google Analytics to analyze your website visitors’ on-site behavior, then a cookie is required for making tracking possible.
Cookies can collect data a wide array of information, ranging from the technical specifications of a device to political convictions. Cookies are not bad in themselves, as they are nothing more but small text files containing bits of data. The threat lies in what one can do with them.
The GDPR ushered in a new era for data and privacy protection
Until recently, cookie usage wasn’t regulated, leaving end-users with no coherent data privacy rights. However, with the advent ofthe GDPR, a privacy and data protection law, the power balance has shifted, so that end-users now are in control of their data and how it is used.
This means that website owners are now obligated to be able to control their cookies in addition to being able to hand over control to their website’s visitors. Furthermore, they are required toprovide full transparency about every active cookie on theirdomain. Non-compliance can result in hefty fines and taint your business’ image – an outcome most undesirable.
Automated tools can help ease the path becoming compliant
Having to track down all active cookies on your domain by yourself can be exhausting, as you may not be fully aware of which third-party services are actually in active use. Remember that marketing tool you tried out a few months ago but quickly abandoned? That service might still have an active cookie on your website.
Moreover, having to provide an explanation of what each cookie does can be extremely time-consuming as that would require you to read and understand the data processing agreement of each of your third-party service providers.
The easiest and most time efficient method to get a complete overview of your cookies and what they do is to use an automated cookie audit tool, aka a cookie checker. After installing the software, the cookie checker will automatically scan your website and list all active cookies and their purpose, enabling you to skip the grueling process of manually collecting information that more often than not is written in a difficult to understand manner. And in a world where time is money, you might as well make it easy for yourself.
