What exactly are cookies?

Whenever you surf the Internet, you are using a browser. Well-known browsers include Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge. Most websites save small text files in your browser. These files are called cookies.

One thing cannot be dismissed out of hand: Cookies are really useful little helpers. Almost all websites use cookies. More precisely, they are HTTP cookies, as there are also other cookies for other areas of application. HTTP cookies are small files that our website stores on your computer. These cookie files are automatically placed in the cookie folder, which is the “brain” of your browser. A cookie consists of a name and a value. When defining a cookie, one or more attributes must also be specified.

Cookies store certain user data about you, such as language or personal page settings. When you visit our site again, your browser sends the “user-related” information back to our site. Thanks to cookies, our website knows who you are and offers you your usual standard settings. In some browsers, each cookie has its own file, in others, such as Firefox, all cookies are stored in a single file.

There are both first-party cookies and third-party cookies. First-party cookies are created directly from our side, third-party cookies are created by partner websites (e.g. Google Analytics). Each cookie must be evaluated individually, as each cookie stores different data. The expiry time of a cookie also varies from a few minutes to a few years. Cookies are not software programs and do not contain viruses, Trojans or other “pests”. Cookies cannot access information on your PC either. For example, cookie data can look like this:

  • * Name: _ga
  • * Expiry time: 2 years
  • * Use: Differentiation of website visitors
  • * Exemplary value: GA1.2.1326744211.152311238649
A browser should support the following minimum sizes:

  • * A cookie should be able to contain at least 4096 bytes
  • * At least 50 cookies should be able to be stored per domain
  • * A total of at least 3000 cookies should be able to be stored

What types of cookies are there?

The question of which cookies we use in particular depends on the services used and is clarified in the following sections of the data protection declaration. At this point we would like to briefly discuss the different types of HTTP cookies.

We use three types of cookies:

Absolutely necessary cookies:
These cookies are necessary to ensure the basic functions of the website. For example, these cookies are needed when a user puts a product in the shopping cart, then continues surfing on other pages and only goes to checkout later. These cookies do not delete the shopping cart, even if the user closes his browser window.

Functional cookies: These cookies collect information about user behavior and whether the user receives any error messages. In addition, these cookies are used to measure the loading time and the behavior of the website in different browsers.

Goal-oriented cookies These cookies ensure better user-friendliness. For example, entered locations, font sizes or form data are saved.

What about my data protection?

The so-called “cookie guidelines” have existed since 2009. It states that the saving of cookies requires your consent. Within the EU countries, however, there are still very different reactions to these guidelines. In Germany, the cookie guidelines have not been implemented as national law. Instead, this guideline was largely implemented in Section 15 (3) of the Telemedia Act (TMG).

If you want to know more about cookies and are not afraid of technical documentation, we recommend https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6265, the Request for Comments from the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) called “HTTP State Management Mechanism”.

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