Can website cookies track you?

Yes. Some cookies can recognize a browser, maintain a session, remember preferences, or associate activity with an identifier.

First-party cookies can support functions such as login sessions and preferences. Tracking and advertising technologies may also use identifiers to understand activity over time, while third-party technologies can be used to recognize activity across different websites, subject to browser and platform restrictions.

Cookies are not the only tracking technology. Websites can also use pixels, local storage, device identifiers, and server-side tracking.

A cookie does not give a website unrestricted access to your device or personal files. What it can do depends on the information it stores, the domain that can access it, and how the website or third party uses that information.