This week I took advantage of Black Friday on some websites, and came across the, increasingly evident, trend of customization of cookie bars on websites.
Cookies are small files sent by websites and stored in your browser (chrome, safari, firefox, edge) that store your preferences. Nowadays, there are numerous sites that ask you to accept or refuse the installation of these small files that allow any site you browse to remember your preferences for a certain period. These cookies can also be used to collect statistical data about your browsing experience on the sites.
In summary, and to make you feel clear, there are different types of cookies, with different functionalities:
So that when you enter a website to do your Christmas shopping, you can quickly and consciously decide whether to accept or reject cookies, I leave here the biggest advantage and disadvantage of "blind" acceptance of them.
The biggest advantage of accepting cookies on a site is that it is possible to give you a more personalized experience when browsing the site, based on your location (e.g. language), faster form filling, and even be able to "show" you other information that might interest you based on those same preferences.
In terms of risks or disadvantages, I can summarize in two: the security risk, particularly when sharing the same computer / browser by several users and the "invasion of ads and suggestions" related to those preferences that you allowed to store.
For companies, there is the warning that, according to European Union guidelines, sites cannot just say they use cookies and store them. It is therefore imperative to look at this issue and provide your website with the functionality of different levels of acceptance/rejection of cookies in an informed way to your visitors.