Cookies are small pieces of text. They are provided by most websites and stored by your web browser on the computer, phone, or other device that you are using. Cookies serve many purposes. They can help a website remember your preferences, learn which areas of the website are useful and which areas need improvement, and provide you with targeted advertisements or personalized content. Sometimes, cookies are enabled when pixels are placed on a website. Pixels are also referred to as web beacons, clear gifs, and tags. They enable websites to read and place cookies.
First-party cookies and third-party cookies
Cookies can be first-party or third-party. A first-party cookie is one that you receive directly from The Coca-Cola Company when visiting our Site. A third-party cookie is one that you have received from another party, such as Google or Facebook. We do not control what third parties do on other sites. However, we may work with certain third-party providers such as Google or Facebook to permit their cookies to function through our Site so we can learn more about your web experience on our Site and better personalize our services for you.
Persistent and session cookies
A persistent cookie is a cookie that is stored by the web browser on your device until it expires or you delete it. The expiration of a persistent cookie is determined by the creator of the cookie and can be upon a certain date or after a length of session time has passed. This means that, for the cookie's entire lifespan, its information will be transmitted to the creator’s server every time the user visits the website that it belongs to or another website configured to check for that cookie (such as an advertisement placed on that website). For this reason, persistent cookies are also called “tracking cookies.”
A session cookie is created temporarily on your device for use by a website during your visit. This type of cookie may store information you enter and track your activity within the website. A session cookie is deleted after you leave the website or when the web browser is closed. A good example of a session cookie is the shopping cart on an e-commerce site. The session cookie stores the items that you add to your cart so they are not forgotten while you view products on other pages of the website. Using a session cookie, the items will all be in the cart when you go to the checkout page.