What are first-party cookies?

Cookies that are created and stored by a website the user visits is called first-party cookies. First-party here refers to the domain that a user visits i.e. only the website publisher have access to these cookies and not external sites. First-party cookies store information such as user sessions, pages visited or items in the cart, login information and browser preferences. These cookies are valuable for website publishers because they can give insights into user behaviour which can be used to improve the website’s user experience. 

Examples of first-party cookies include strictly necessary cookies that are essential for the website to operate, functional cookies that are necessary to enable features beyond essential functionality such as interactive design elements etc.