First party cookies are set by the website, you are visiting and they can only be read by that site.

Third party cookies are set by a different organisation to the owner of the website you are visiting. For example, the website might use a third party analytics company who will set their own cookie to perform this service. The website you are visiting may also contain content embedded from, for example YouTube or Flickr, and these sites may set their own cookies.

More significantly, a website might use a third party advertising network to deliver targeted advertising on their website. These may also have the capability to track your browsing across different sites. It is important to note that advertising cookies are not set for UK visitors to the BBC website. BBC Worldwide sites (including bbc.com) do use advertising cookies but these will not track your behaviour outside of the BBC Worldwide family of sites. Find out more.

Session Cookies are stored only temporarily during a browsing session and are deleted from the user’s device when the browser is closed.

This type of cookie is saved on your computer for a fixed period (usually a year or longer) and is not deleted when the browser is closed. Persistent cookies are used where we need to know who you are for more than one browsing session. For example, we use this type of cookie to store your preferences, so that they are remembered for the next visit.

Many websites use Adobe Flash Player to deliver video and game content to their users. Adobe utilise their own cookies, which are not manageable through your browser settings but are used by the Flash Player for similar purposes, such as storing preferences or tracking users.

Flash Cookies work in a different way to web browser cookies (the cookie types listed above are all set via your browser); rather than having individual cookies for particular jobs, a website is restricted to storing all data in one cookie. You can control how much data can be stored in that cookie but you cannot choose what type of information is allowed to be stored. For example, in respect of the BBC website, it is not possible to allow the BBC to store information for iPlayer but not for games you play on BBC websites.

Find out how to manage cookies.