Cookie Policy

Cookie policy 

September  2021 

  1. What is a cookie? 
  2. How do we use cookies? 
  3. What types of cookies do we use? 
  4. How do we use cookies for advertising? 
  5. How to manage advertising cookies for Guardian Advertising, including with Guardian Display, Guardian Labs and/or Guardian Jobs through their associated websites (‘our sites’).
  6. Useful links 

 

The Sites covered by this cookie policy are:

For more information about the use of cookies while visiting our sites, please read our privacy policy or email dataprotection@theguardian.com. 

 

What is a cookie? 

A cookie is a small file that can be placed on your device that allows us to recognise and remember you. It is sent to your browser and stored on your computer’s hard drive or tablet or mobile device. When you visit our sites, we may collect information from you automatically through cookies or similar technology, such as a tag, pixel, or other web beacon. 

How do we use cookies? 

We use cookies in a range of ways to improve your experience on our site, including 

  • Keeping you signed in 
  • Understanding how you use our our sites 
  • Showing you Guardian products and services that are relevant to you 
  • Working with partners to deliver to you relevant advertising 

In the next section, we explain in more detail how we use cookies and similar technology on our sites and apps for a number of purposes. 

Other organisations also collect user information on our sites through cookies, tags and pixels. Tags and pixels, also known as web beacons, are similar to cookies but are collected through embedded images. 

Using cookies and other technology allows other organisations to help us to analyse how our site is being used, measure the number of visitors to the site, and display advertising. To accomplish these goals, our sites utilise cookies, tags, pixels, and other web beacons to communicate information about you to others. If you are a California or US resident, you may elect to opt out of all sales of personal information through these cookies, tags, pixels, and web beacons by clicking the “California resident - Do not sell” link located in the footer of every page or by clicking the “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” button inside our privacy banner. 

If you are not a California or US resident, you can exercise control over this technology by visiting the “Privacy settings” link in the footer of every page. Cookies that are used by our sites are referred to as “first-party cookies” and those that are used by our partners are “third-party cookies”. Because of how cookies work, our website cannot access third-party cookies; nor can other organisations access the data in the cookies we use on our website. There are more details about both types of cookies in the following sections. 

 

What types of cookies do we use? 

We use four types of cookies: 

  • Essential – cookies that are essential to provide you with services you have requested. For example, these include the cookies that make it possible for you to stay logged into your  account and make comments. If you set your browser to block these cookies, then these functions and services will not work for you. In particular, we won’t be able to save your preferences about cookies. 
  • Performance - cookies which measure how often you visit our sites and how you use them. We use this information to get a better sense of how our users engage with our  sites, and how to improve it, so that users have a better experience. For example, we collect information about which of our pages are most frequently visited, and by which types of users. We also use third-party cookies to help with performance. For example, the Google Analytics cookie gives us information such as your journey between pages and whether you have downloaded anything (details of how to opt out of it are below). 
  • Functionality – cookies that are used to recognise you and remember your preferences or settings when you return to our sites, so that we can provide you with a more personalised experience. For example, if you are based in the United Kingdom, we will remember this and make sure that you receive the UK homepage when you visit our site, rather than the US or Australia homepage. A mix of first-party and third-party cookies are used. 
  • Advertising – cookies that are used to collect information about your visit to our  sites, including the content you have viewed, the links you have followed and information about your browser, device and your IP address. We have set out more details on this below. 

 

How do we use cookies for advertising? 

Cookies are a key part of how we deliver advertising on our sites. Among other uses, they allow us to show more relevant advertising to people who visit theguardian.com by showing you adverts that are based on your browsing patterns and the way you have interacted with our sites and apps. We can then show you adverts which we believe may interest you.

As you browse our sites, some of the cookies and similar technology we place on your device are for advertising, so we can understand what sorts of pages you read and are interested in. We can then display advertising on your browser based on these interests. We are a partner in the Ozone Project that may use cookies, pixels and similar technology (see ‘Ozone Project’ and its service provider ‘Lotame’ ) to collect information about what you have viewed and how you have used our sites and our app. They will make assumptions about your interests and preferences and add you to groups based on those assumptions, in order to show you advertising. For example, if you look at a page in our travel section you might be added to a group for people interested in holidaying abroad, and then we might show you adverts for holidays abroad. 

The advertising techniques we use do not collect personal data such as your name, email address, postal address or phone number. We sometimes use information such as your IP address and browser type and also sometimes share some limited aspects of this with others for advertising purposes. Under California law, this collected data can be considered “personal information.” Please consult the  Privacy Policy for more information about your California Privacy Rights. 

There are times when we want to reach  users who use social media to market our own products and services such as our live events. We use cookies to help with this. For example, we place a pixel on our web pages that allows Facebook to place cookies on  users’ web browsers. When a  user who uses Facebook returns to Facebook from our site, Facebook can identify them as part of a group of Guardian  users and, , deliver them marketing messages  on our behalf. Based upon our agreements with these other companies, the data that can be obtained from a visit to our sites is limited to the URL of the pages that have been visited and, in some cases, the status of any unfinished or completed commercial transactions undertaken with us, together with the limited information a browser might pass on, such as its IP address. In addition to the cookie controls that we mentioned above, if you are a Facebook user you can opt out by following this link. 

We may also share and receive online data collected through cookies and similar technology with our advertising partners. This means that when you are on another website, you may be shown advertising based on your browsing patterns on our sites. We may also show you advertising on our sites based on your browsing patterns on other sites that we have obtained from our advertising partners. 

Online retargeting is another form of online advertising that allows us and some of our advertising partners to show you advertising based on your browsing patterns and interactions with other sites. The use of cookies may mean that when you are on another site, you may be shown advertising based on what you have looked at on our sites. For example, if you have visited the website of an online clothes shop, you may start seeing adverts from that same shopping site displaying special offers or showing you the products you were browsing. This allows companies to advertise to you if you leave their website without making a purchase. 

 

How to manage advertising cookies 

You can manage the use of cookies on our  sites, including advertising cookies, and disable the sharing of data with partners for advertising purposes by using the steps set out here. Under California law, this collected data can be considered “personal information.” Please consult the Privacy Policy for more information about your California Privacy Rights. In some cases you can turn off advertising cookies on a cookie-by-cookie basis, and we give the most common examples below. 

You can further manage the use of advertising cookies and disable the sharing of data with partners for advertising purposes by clicking the privacy settings link in the footer of this page. However, if you are located in the US, please use the “California resident - Do Not Sell button” instead, you can find it in the footer of every page. 

This option will reduce the number of advertising partners with whom we share your data, although you will still see some advertising that has been tailored to you as well as advertising intended for  users in general. 

You can switch some cookies off through the Your Online Choices site. You may need to do this again each time you use a different IP address, device, or virtual private network. You can also adjust the global privacy setting or plug-in which should be communicated to use via your browser. 

It is also possible to stop your browser from accepting cookies altogether by changing your browser’s cookie settings. You can usually find these settings in the “options” or “preferences” menu of your browser. The following links may be helpful, or you can use the “Help” option in your browser.

Cookie settings in Internet Explorer 

Cookie settings in Firefox 

Cookie settings in Chrome 

Cookie settings in Safari web and iOS 

 

Useful links 

If you would like to find out more about privacy, cookies and their use on the internet, you may find the following links useful: 

Microsoft cookies guide 

All About Cookies 

The Information Commissioner’s Office 

If you would like to contact us about cookies please email dataprotection@theguardian.com  

 

Changes to this cookie policy to date

[Month 2021]: Created to apply specifically to services for  Guardian Advertising, including  Guardian Display, Guardian Labs and/or Guardian Jobs  through their associated websites (‘our sites’).  Replacing the standard version for all sites published 20 August 2020. 

A list of all previous changes are available upon request.