What is a first-party cookie?
What does first-party actually mean?
It is about who sets the cookie. If the shop you are on stores it, it is first-party. If a different site stores it in response to a request for something on the page, it is third-party.
First-party cookies are not only for baskets. A cookie that your own analytics tag stores on your own domain can also be first-party, and it is still tracking. The word says who set it. It does not say what it is for.
Does first-party mean no consent needed?
Not by itself. First-party says who set the cookie, not whether it needs the visitor's consent. Which of your shop's cookies need consent is a legal question: your counsel decides.
Consent Mode sits next to this question. It is Google's mechanism for passing a visitor's consent choices to Google tags, which then change how much and what kind of data they send.
Our view: first-party describes the cookie's origin, not its permission. List what each cookie is for before anyone calls it safe.
The checks worth running on your tracking are set out in our guide to an ecommerce tracking audit. You can start with a free measurement and tracking audit if you want a second pair of eyes.
Worked example
Easily confused with
First-party cookie vs Third-party cookie
Set in response to a request for a resource from a site other than the one you are visiting. The other half of the pair.
First-party cookie vs First-party data
Data a brand collects directly from its own interactions with customers, such as orders, accounts and email sign-ups. That is data, not a cookie file. Orders do not need a cookie to count as first-party data.
First-party cookie vs Server-side tracking
Collecting data on a server you control and passing it on to analytics and ad platforms. It is about where data is processed, not about who sets a cookie.
FAQ
Is a first-party cookie the same as first-party data?
No. A cookie is a small piece of data stored in the browser. First-party data is information a brand collects from its own customers, with or without cookies.
Can a first-party cookie track people?
It can. It tracks what happens on the site that set it. What a given cookie does depends on what it was built to do.
Sources
- Privacy Sandbox glossaryPrimary source
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