What is a “cookie”?
Cookies are small text files that a website stores on your computer or mobile device when you visit the site.
They enhance your online experience by saving browsing information. With cookies, websites can keep you logged in, remember your site preferences, and deliver personalized content. Cookies can also be used to gather statistics on browsing behavior and to display targeted advertisements.
In general, cookies can be categorized by:
Domain:
– First-party cookies are issued by a website that a user is directly visiting.
– Third-party cookies are not created by the website being visited, but by third parties like Google Analytics, DoubleClick, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Vimeo, etc.
Purpose:
– Strictly necessary cookies are required for the website to function correctly.
– Preference cookies allow a website to remember choices you have made in the past.
– Statistical cookies help the website owner collect statistical data and understand how visitors interact with the website.
– Marketing cookies track the user’s online activity to help advertisers serve more relevant ads.
Duration:
– Session cookies are deleted when the user closes the browser.
– Persistent cookies remain on the user’s device for a certain period.
What cookies and trackers do we use?
Strictly Necessary cookies
Cookie key Domain Path Cookie type Expiration Description
PHPSESSID
First-party Session A cookie generated by applications based on the PHP language. This is a general-purpose identifier used to maintain user session variables. It is usually a randomly generated number; how it is used can be specific to the site. A good example is maintaining login status for a user between pages.
Performance cookies
_gid
First-party 1 day This cookie is set by Google Analytics. It stores and updates a unique value for each page visited and is used for counting and tracking pageviews.
_gat
first-party 1 minute This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics; according to documentation, it is used to throttle the request rate – limiting data collection on high-traffic sites.
_ga
First-party 2 years This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics – a significant update to Google’s more commonly used analytics service. This cookie is used to distinguish unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier. It is included in each page request on a site and used to calculate visitor, session, and campaign data for site analytics reports.
Targeting cookies
Cookie key Domain Path Cookie type Expiration Description
YSC
More info .youtube.com / Third-party Session This cookie is set by YouTube to track views of embedded videos.
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE
More info .youtube.com / Third-party 6 months This cookie is set by YouTube to keep track of user preferences for YouTube videos embedded in sites; it can also determine whether the website visitor is using the new or old version of the YouTube interface.
Your cookie preferences
When you first arrive at the site, a cookie banner offers you the option to accept or refuse non-essential cookies. You can refuse or disable cookies at any time, except for those necessary for the stable operation of the site. You have the option to modify your cookie management preferences at any time.