A first-party cookie is a small data packet that your web browser generates and exchanges with a dedicated web server. It is directly stored by the website (or domain) you visit. These cookies allow website owners to collect analytics data, remember language settings, and perform other useful functions that provide a good user experience. The domain host can see the data that the cookie retrieves. First-party cookies can’t usually be used to track a user’s activity on another site other than the original website it was placed on. These types of cookies include things such as your sign-on credentials, items you put in the shopping cart, or your preferred language.
First-party cookies are set by the publisher’s web server or any JavaScript loaded in the website. An example of a first-party cookie is when a user signs into an eCommerce website, like Amazon. The web browser will send a request in a process that provides the highest level of trust that the user is directly interacting with Amazon. The web browser saves this data file to the user’s computer, under the “amazon.com” domain. If first-party cookies were blocked, a user would have to sign in every time they visited, and they wouldn’t be able to purchase multiple items while shopping online because the cart would reset after every item that was added.
It’s important to note that first-party cookies are different from third-party cookies which track users across multiple domains.