Use of cookies by this site
Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit. They are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site.
The tables below explains the cookies we use and why.
Google Analytics
We use Google Analytics to collect information about how people use this site. We do this to make sure it’s meeting peoples’ needs and to understand how we can make the website work better.
Google Analytics stores information about what pages on this site you visit, how long you are on the site, how you got here and what you click on while you are here.
We do not collect or store any other personal information (e.g. your name or address) so this data cannot be used to identify who you are.
gtag.js and analytics.js set the following cookies:
| Cookie Name | Expiration Time | Description |
|---|---|---|
_ga |
2 years | Used to distinguish users. |
_gid |
24 hours | Used to distinguish users. |
_gat |
1 minute | Used to throttle request rate. If Google Analytics is deployed via Google Tag Manager, this cookie will be named _dc_gtm_<property-id>. |
AMP_TOKEN |
30 seconds to 1 year | Contains a token that can be used to retrieve a Client ID from AMP Client ID service. Other possible values indicate opt-out, inflight request or an error retrieving a Client ID from AMP Client ID service. |
_gac_<property-id> |
90 days | Contains campaign related information for the user. If you have linked your Google Analytics and AdWords accounts, AdWords website conversion tags will read this cookie unless you |
The ga.js JavaScript library sets the following cookies:
| Cookie Name | Default Expiration Time | Description |
|---|---|---|
__utma |
2 years from set/update | Used to distinguish users and sessions. The cookie is created when the javascript library executes and no existing __utma cookies exists. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics. |
__utmt |
10 minutes | Used to throttle request rate. |
__utmb |
30 mins from set/update | Used to determine new sessions/visits. The cookie is created when the javascript library executes and no existing __utmb cookies exists. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics. |
__utmc |
End of browser session | Not used in ga.js. Set for interoperability with urchin.js. Historically, this cookie operated in conjunction with the __utmb cookie to determine whether the user was in a new session/visit. |
__utmz |
6 months from set/update | Stores the traffic source or campaign that explains how the user reached your site. The cookie is created when the javascript library executes and is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics. |
__utmv |
2 years from set/update | Used to store visitor-level custom variable data. This cookie is created when a developer uses the _setCustomVar method with a visitor level custom variable. This cookie was also used for the deprecated _setVar method. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics. |
To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.