🧠Knowledge Series #36: Cookies Explained

Your ultimate guide to cookies, including what they are, how they work and how to conduct a cookie audit

🔒The Knowledge Series is a collection of easy to read guides designed to help you plug the gaps in your tech knowledge so that you feel more confident when chatting to colleagues. Clearly explained in plain English. One topic at a time.

If you’re a free subscriber and you’d like to upgrade to unlock them you can do so below. Or you can find out more about paid access here.

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Hi product people👋,

Almost 80% of Americans say they usually or sometimes click to agree to privacy policies without ever reading them. But just because some users don’t know or care what cookie notices and privacy policies are doesn’t mean product teams can take the same approach.

Despite another delay in its rollout, Google is still committed to its gradual removal of third party cookies from browsers - and the consequences for product teams are fairly significant. 

But what exactly are cookies anyway? What are the most important things for product teams to know about them - and are cookie banners essential in all cases?

In this Knowledge Series we'll cover everything you need to know about cookies with real world examples from companies including Linear, Spotify, Intercom and others. Plus, we’ll look at some super helpful practical tools that you can use to categorize your own product’s cookies to prepare for the third party cookie-free future.

Coming up:

1. What exactly is a cookie anyway? 

2. How to find some cookies in your browser

3. Local storage vs cookies: what’s the difference?

4. How to design and implement cookie banners effectively - a look at 10 examples from top tech companies including Spotify, Discord, Google Cloud, Linear and more

5. What the phase out of third party cookies means for product teams

6. Tools you can use to help audit your product’s cookies

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The Knowledge Series