1. General information

Regulation 2016/679 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (General Data Protection Regulation, hereinafter referred to as “GDPR”) was adopted by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union on April 27, 2016, and its provisions are directly applicable from May 25, 2018. GDPR is directly applicable in all Member States of the European Union, protecting the rights of all individuals located within the European Union. From a material perspective, GDPR applies to all controllers processing personal data.

GDPR does not apply to the processing of personal data relating to legal persons and, in particular, legal entities, including the name and type of legal person and the contact details of the legal person. Personal data is defined as any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person. An identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier, or one or more specific elements.

With regard to GDPR, cookies can be defining elements in the identification of a person in the online environment, as they can store certain data or information that could lead to the “tracking” and subsequent identification of a person in the online environment. In this sense, the use of cookies can constitute a means of collecting personal data and therefore falls within the scope of GDPR.

2. Cookies usage policy

This policy refers to the cookies related to the web page www.madero-furniture.ro owned by SC Carp Management & Consulting SRL, headquartered in Bucharest, Ramnicu Valcea Street, No. 14, Ap. 25, Bucharest, registered with the Trade Register under No. J40/9159/2017, VAT/CUI RO 37751899, phone 0744275268, email andreea.carp@cmconsult.ro, hereinafter referred to as the “Operator.”

3. What are cookies?

A cookie is a small file, consisting of alphanumeric characters, that will be stored on the computer, mobile device, or other equipment of a user accessing a website that uses this element. The cookie is installed by the request issued by a web server to a browser (e.g., Internet Explorer, Chrome) and is completely passive, meaning it does not contain software programs, viruses, or spyware and cannot access information on the user’s hard drive.

4. What are cookies used for?

These files allow the recognition of the user’s terminal and the presentation of the content existing on the site in a relevant manner, adapted to the user’s preferences. Cookies provide users with a pleasant browsing experience and support the efforts of the Operator to provide comfortable services to the users of the website (e.g., privacy preferences, shopping cart, relevant advertising, useful recommendations, etc.).

Furthermore, cookies are used in preparing anonymous statistics that help us understand how a user benefits from our web pages, how they use them, and for what purpose. Thus, we have the possibility to improve the structure and content offered on our website, excluding the personal identification of the user.

In other words, cookies do not allow for the direct identification of the person accessing the website, but only of structural elements that will make the user’s online experience as intuitive as possible. A good example in this regard is the situation where a website is visited and a specific product/service is viewed, and then the website is closed. Upon returning to the website, the cookie module will allow the website to display notifications such as “Last viewed products,” so that the product/service viewed at a previous date can be easily found.

5. Classification of cookies

Cookies are diverse, with various variations, each serving a specific purpose or originating from a certain source. Thus, cookies can be classified as:

A. First-Party Cookies: These cookies are specific to the website accessed by a visitor. Primarily, they serve a statistical purpose, as these cookie modules calculate the views/accesses of the website (or a specific category of the website), the number of active sessions, etc.

B. Third-Party Cookies: These cookies do not belong to or are not controlled by the accessed website. They are set by web domains that are not necessarily directly accessed by the user. Third-party cookies are inserted by website owners when multiple online facilities need to be interconnected. A good example of this is the use of a YouTube video on the interface of another website. By pressing the “play” button of the video, YouTube can also place cookies on the accessing device, without the user having to enter www.youtube.com by default.

C. Session Cookies: These cookies are stored as long as the browser remains open and are deleted immediately (or at most a few seconds after) the browser is closed. These cookies serve a purely administrative and functional purpose, allowing the user to benefit from the accessed website in a useful manner.

D. Persistent Cookies: As the name suggests, these cookies are stored for a longer period of time. They have a specified duration until they exist on the user’s device (ranging from a few minutes to years or decades) and are not automatically deleted when closing the web browser. The purpose of these cookies is to track the interaction of users with a specific website. An example in this regard would be retaining login data on a particular website (Remember Username/Password). However, the user still has full control over these persistent cookies and can delete or block them from their device at any time.

E. Data Security Cookies: These cookies can only be used by websites that use the HTTPS protocol. These cookies contain encrypted data, which is useful for online payments, online transactions, online/mobile banking services, etc.

6. What cookies do we use?

On this website, we use the following types of cookies:

7. How are cookies used by this site?

A visit to this site may place the cookies listed in the previous section on the user’s device for the following purposes:

A. To store user preferences;

B. To enhance the user experience on this site;

C. To keep the site operational;

D. To provide users with all available options on the website;

E. To collect data for purely analytical purposes.

8. Deleting cookies

In general, any application used to access web pages allows the saving of cookies on the device by default. These settings can be changed at any time by the user from the “Settings” menu of each application. Thus, the user can configure the web browser to not allow the storage of cookies, allow cookies only from certain websites, delete already stored cookies, and perform many other actions. Detailed information about the possibilities and methods of managing cookies can be found in the settings area of the application (web browser).

9. Why are cookies important for the user experience in the online environment?

Cookies are a crucial aspect of the efficient functioning of a web page, helping to generate an intuitive browsing experience tailored to the preferences and interests of each user. Refusing or disabling cookies can make some websites unusable or severely limit the functionality of certain sections of a website.

For example, for websites that contain large or very large databases, the cookie module is essential for their proper use and obtaining the desired results. Due to their flexibility and necessity, as well as the fact that the majority of the most visited websites use cookies, they are almost inevitable.

It is important to note that refusing or disabling cookies does not mean that online advertisements will no longer be displayed; it simply means that these advertisements will no longer be able to take into account the user’s preferences and interests as previously indicated by their browsing behavior. In other words, cookies have a well-defined general purpose: maximizing comfort, accessibility, and the relevance of the content displayed to the user.

10. Other security aspects related to cookies

Since the protection of personal data is a goal that must be achieved, it is important to be aware of any potential issues that cookies or their use may create.

Considering that data is constantly transmitted through cookies, in both directions (from the user to the website and vice versa), if an attacker or unauthorized person intervenes during the data transmission process, the information contained in cookies can be intercepted, altered, or even blocked. Although very rare, this can happen. For example, if the browser connects to the server using an unencrypted network (an unsecured Wi-Fi network), an attacker can intercept the data transmission.