We use cookies and similar tools across our websites to improve their 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 recognise 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, analyse 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 you use?
Generally, our cookies perform up to four different functions:
1. Essential cookies
Some cookies are essential for the operation of our website. For example, some cookies allow us to identify account holders and ensure they can access the account holder only pages. If an account holder opts to disable these cookies, the user will not be able to access all of the content that a subscription entitles them to. This is why these cookies are always switched on as they are classed as essential for this website to function.
2. Performance Cookies
We utilise other cookies to analyse how our visitors use our websites and to monitor website performance. This allows us to provide a high quality experience by customising 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 articles or site services that we think will be of interest to you based on your usage of the website.
3. 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 the site, and recall your customisation preferences, such as which regional edition of the website you want to see when you log in.
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.
Does anyone else use cookies on your website?
We also use or allow third parties to serve cookies that fall into the four categories above. For example, like many companies, we may use Google Analytics to help us monitor our website traffic. 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 websites.
The first time you accessed our website after 22 May 2012, you should have seen an overlay which explained cookies and give you the option to allow all non essential cookies.
Please remember that if you do choose to disable cookies, you may find that certain sections of our website do not work properly
Do we track whether users open our emails?
Our emails may contain a campaign-unique item or link to tell us whether 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 and to inform our advertisers in aggregate how many users have clicked on their advertisements. The item or link will be deleted when you delete the email.
More Information
More detail on how businesses use cookies is available at www.allaboutcookies.org.
Cookies set by your social networks
| Cookie name | Expires after | Description of cookie |
| NID | 6 months | A unique identifier used by Google applications to store user preference information. |
| HSID | 10 years | A unique identifier used by Google applications to store user preference information. |
| SSID | 10 years | A unique identifier used by Google applications to store user preference information. |
| APISID | 10 years | A unique identifier used by Google applications to store user preference information. |
| SAPISID | 10 years | A unique identifier used by Google applications to store user preference information. |
| SID | 10 years | A unique identifier used by Google applications to store user preference information. |
| BEAT | 1 day | A persistent cookie that is used to track Google+ (+1) status |
| ULS | End of session | A session cookie used to track Google+ (+1) status |
| _utma | 12 months | This keeps track of the number of times a visitor has been to Google+, when their first visit was, and when their last visit occurred |
| _utmb | 30 minutes | A timestamp of the exact moment in time when a visitor enters the site |
| _utmc | End of session | A timestamp of the exact moment in time when a visitor leaves the site – having waited 30 minutes for another pageview to happen, and if it doesn’t, it expires |
| _utmz | 6 months | This keeps track of where the visitor came from, what search engine was used, what link was clicked on, what keywords used, and where in the world Google+ was accessed from |
| Cookie name | Expires after | Description of cookie |
| k | 1 week | Twitter image server cookie |
| guest_id | 24 months | Identifies whether the visitor is a user or guest of Twitter |
| original_referer | . | This cookie is used to supply the feed on this site. |
| _utma | 12 months | This keeps track of the number of times a visitor has been to Twitter, when their first visit was, and when their last visit occurred |
| _utmb | 30 minutes | A timestamp of the exact moment in time when a visitor enters the site |
| _utmc | End of session | A timestamp of the exact moment in time when a visitor leaves the site – having waited 30 minutes for another pageview to happen, and if it doesn’t, it expires |
| _utmz | 6 months | This keeps track of where the visitor came from, what search engine was used, what link was clicked on, what keywords used, and where in the world Twitter was accessed from |
| _utmv | 2 years | Used for user-defined reports in Google Analytics classifying the visitor |
| _twitter sess | End of session | Defines a unique ID associated with the current user linked to Twitter |
| auth_token | End of session | On login |
| auh_token_session | End of session | On login |
| secure_session | End of session | On login |
| twll | 10 years | On login |
| lang | End of session | On login |
| pid | 24 months | Used by Twitter (from the share buttons that are embedded in some of our pages) |
| Cookie name | Expires after | Description of cookie |
| datr | 24 months | This identifies the web browser being used to connect to Facebook independent of the logged in visitor. This cookie plays a key role in Facebook’s security and site integrity features |
| reg_fb_gate | End of session | This contains the first Facebook page visited |
| reg_fb_ref | End of session | This contains the last Facebook page visited |
| wd | End of session | This identifies the browser window dimensions |
| lsd | End of session | This contains a random value that is set when a Facebook user logs out in order to prevent cross-site request forgery attacks |
| c_user | Set by visitor | This contains the user ID of the currently logged in visitor. The lifetime of this cookie is dependent on the status of the “keep me logged in” checkbox. If the checkbox is set, the cookie expires after 30 days of inactivity, otherwise the cookie is a session cookie and will therefore be cleared when the browser exits |
| csm | End of session | This cookie is used to integrate the user’s Facebook’s Like status with the London 2012 site |
| lu | 2 years | This is used to manage how the login page is presented to the visitor. The lifetime is the same as c_user |
| s | End of session | |
| locale | 1 week | This contains the display locale of the last logged in visitor on this browser. This is set after the visitor logs out |
| sct | Set by visitor | This contains a timestamp representing the time at which the visitor logged in. This cookie is used to distinguish between multiple sessions created at different times. The lifetime is the same as c_user |
| xs | Set by visitor | This contains the session number, a session secret and an optional “secure” flag (if visitor has enabled secure browsing feature). The lifetime is the same as c_user |