Cookie Policy
How we manage cookies on our Website
We use cookies and similar tools on our Website to improve its performance and enhance your user experience. This policy explains how we do that.
What are cookies?
Cookies are small text files which a website may put on your computer or mobile device when you first visit a site or page. The cookie will help the website, or another website, to recognize your device the next time you visit. Web beacons or other similar files can also do the same thing. We use the term "cookies" in this policy to refer to all files that collect information in this way.
There are many functions cookies serve. For example, they can help us to remember your username and preferences, analyze how well our website is performing, or even allow us to recommend content we believe will be most relevant to you.
Certain cookies contain personal information – for example, if you click to "remember me" when logging in, a cookie will store your username. Most cookies won't collect information that identifies you, and will instead collect more general information such as how users arrive at and use our websites, or a user's general location.
What sort of cookies do we use?
We use both session cookies (which expire once you close your web browser) and persistent cookies (which stay on your device for a set period of time or until you delete them).
Generally, our cookies perform four primary functions:
Essential cookies
Some cookies are essential for the operation of our Website. For example, some cookies allow us to identify subscribers and ensure they can access the subscription-only pages. If a subscriber opts to disable these cookies, the user may not be able to access all of the content that a subscription entitles them to.
Performance cookies
We utilize other cookies to analyze how our visitors use our Website and to monitor Website performance. This allows us to provide a high quality experience by customizing our offering and quickly identifying and fixing any issues that arise. For example, we might use performance cookies to keep track of which pages are most popular, which method of linking between pages is most effective, and to determine why some pages are receiving error messages. We might also use these cookies to highlight pages or site services that we think will be of interest to you based on your usage of the website.
Functionality cookies
We use functionality cookies to allow us to remember your preferences. For example, cookies save you the trouble of typing in your username every time you access our Website.
We also use functionality cookies to provide you with enhanced services such as allowing you to watch a video online or comment on a blog.
Behaviorally targeted advertising cookies
We and our advertisers use cookies to serve you with advertisements that we believe are relevant to you and your interests. You might see these advertisements on our Website and on other sites that you visit. However, we do not tell our advertisers who you are. These cookies record your visit to our Website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make our Website and the advertising displayed on it more relevant to your interests. We may also share this information with third parties for this purpose. Without these cookies, online advertisements you encounter will be less relevant to you and your interests.
You can find more information about the individual first-party cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them in the table below:
| Name | Purpose | Expiration |
|---|---|---|
| _atc | Tracks affiliate traffic | 30 days |
| _atcd | Assists _atc cookie to speed up subsequent requests | 30 days |
| _csrf_token | Security CSRF Verification | session |
| device_id | Opaque identifier for a server-side device record holding essential and preference state (e.g. age verification, last known account state, dismissed notices) | 400 days, renewed on each visit |
| _sktrk | Enable or Disable the use of Analytics Platform(s) | 5 years |
| st* | Stores User Experience Split test tracking state | 60 days |
| _mr_skin_new_session | Allows a user to login to account | Maximum: 1 year |
| _ssr_token | Authenticates the internal safe-search reviewer tool (signed) | 30 days |
| d_id | Identifies a device you have authorised for your account, so we can recognise it on later sign-ins | 400 days |
Does anyone else use cookies on our Website?
Advertisers sometimes use their own cookies to provide you with targeted advertising. For example, advertisers may use a profile they have built on sites that you have previously visited to present you with more relevant advertisements during your visit to our websites. We believe that it is useful to our users to see advertisements that are more relevant to their interests. If you are based in the European Union and would like to learn more about how advertisers use these types of cookies or to choose not to receive them, please visit www.youronlinechoices.eu. If you are based in the United States and would like to learn more, please visit http://www.aboutads.info/choices/.
We also use or allow third parties to serve cookies that fall into the four categories above. For example, like many companies, we use Google Analytics to help us monitor our Website traffic. We may also enable third parties to serve cookies to help to identify fraudulent or non-human traffic on our Website. We may also use third-party cookies to help us with market research, revenue tracking, improving site functionality and monitoring compliance with our terms and conditions and copyright policy.
Can a website user block cookies?
As we've explained above, cookies help you to get the most out of our Website. If you do wish to disable our cookies then please follow the instructions in our How to Manage Cookies section. Please remember that if you choose to disable cookies, you may find that certain sections of our Website do not work properly.
You can opt out of all behaviorally targeted advertising cookies on our Website by going to https://www.google.com/settings/ads. By opting out of this type of cookie, you will stop receiving ads that are targeted specifically to you on these sites; however you will still receive generic advertising.
Do we track whether users open our emails?
Our emails may contain a single, campaign-unique "web beacon pixel" to tell us whether, and how many times, our emails are opened and verify any clicks through to links or advertisements within the email. We may use this information for purposes including determining which of our emails are more interesting to users, to query whether users who do not open our emails wish to continue receiving them, to check that content is being used in accordance with our terms and conditions, and to inform our advertisers in aggregate how many users have clicked on their advertisements. The pixel will be deleted when you delete the email. If you do not wish the pixel to be downloaded to your device, you should select to receive emails from us in plain text rather than HTML.
Other tracking technologies
We may also use mobile device identifiers and the other technologies identified in Section 6 of our Privacy Policy for the purposes articulated in our Privacy Policy, for example to recognize your device when you use our Service.