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/info below explain the cookies we use and why.
WordPress
WordPress is our content management system that runs the website.
| Name | Expires | Purpose |
| comment_ author_* | 1 year after set | Stored when visitors comment on blog, so that they won’t need to re-type all their information again when they want to leave another comment. |
| comment_ author_email_* | 1 year after set | Stored when visitors comment on blog, so that they won’t need to re-type all their information again when they want to leave another comment. |
| comment_ author_url_* | 1 year after set | Stored when visitors comment on blog, so that they won’t need to re-type all their information again when they want to leave another comment. |
| wordpress_ test_cookie | expires when browser is closed | This cookie checks if you have cookies enabled (for registered users only). |
| wordpress_ sec_* | expires when browser is closed | This cookie is required to keep you logged into our dashboard (for registered users only). |
| wordpress_ logged_in_* | expires when browser is closed | This cookie is required to keep you logged into our dashboard (for registered users only). |
Jetpack plugin for WordPress
Jetpack provides a range of features to help with site design, traffic growth, and security. Below are feature-specific privacy information to better explain how Jetpack may use your data and track activity.
– Activity
This feature only records activities of a site’s registered users, and the retention duration of activity data will depend on the site’s plan and activity type.
Data Used: To deliver this functionality and record activities around site management, the following information is captured: user email address, user role, user login, user display name, WordPress.com and local user IDs, the activity to be recorded, the WordPress.com-connected site ID of the site on which the activity takes place, the site’s Jetpack version, and the timestamp of the activity. Some activities may also include the actor’s IP address (login attempts, for example) and user agent.
Activity Tracked: Login attempts/actions, post and page update and publish actions, comment/pingback submission and management actions, plugin and theme management actions, widget updates, user management actions, and the modification of other various site settings and options. Retention duration of activity data depends on the site’s plan and activity type. See the complete list of currently-recorded activities (along with retention information).
Data Synced (?): Successful and failed login attempts, which will include the actor’s IP address and user agent.
– Carousel
Image views are only recorded if the site owner, has explicitly enabled image view stats tracking for this feature via the jetpack_enable_carousel_stats filter.
Data Used: If image view tracking is enabled, the following information is used: IP address, WordPress.com user ID (if logged in), WordPress.com username (if logged in), user agent, visiting URL, referring URL, timestamp of event, browser language, country code.
Activity Tracked: Image views.
– Contact Form / Surveys
Data Used: Akismet is enabled on the site, the contact form submission data — IP address, user agent, name, email address, website, and message — is submitted to the Akismet service (also owned by Automattic) for the sole purpose of spam checking. The actual submission data is stored in the database of the site on which it was submitted and is emailed directly to the owner of the form (i.e. the site author who published the page on which the contact form resides). This email will include the submitter’s IP address, timestamp, name, email address, website, and message.
Data Synced (?): Post and post meta data associated with a user’s contact form submission. If Akismet is enabled on the site, the IP address and user agent originally submitted with the comment are synced, as well, as they are stored in post meta.
– Protect
Data Used: In order to check login activity and potentially block fraudulent attempts, the following information is used: attempting user’s IP address, attempting user’s email address/username (i.e. according to the value they were attempting to use during the login process), and all IP-related HTTP headers attached to the attempting user.
Activity Tracked: Failed login attempts (these include IP address and user agent). We also set a cookie (jpp_math_pass) for 1 day to remember if/when a user has successfully completed a math captcha to prove that they’re a real human. Learn more about this cookie.
Data Synced (?): Failed login attempts, which contain the user’s IP address, attempted username or email address, and user agent information.
– Sharing
Data Used: When sharing content via email (this option is only available if Akismet is active on the site), the following information is used: sharing party’s name and email address (if the user is logged in, this information will be pulled directly from their account), IP address (for spam checking), user agent (for spam checking), and email body/content. This content will be sent to Akismet (also owned by Automattic) so that a spam check can be performed. Additionally, if reCAPTCHA (by Google) is enabled by the site owner, the sharing party’s IP address will be shared with that service. You can find Google’s privacy policy here.
– Subscriptions
Data Used: To initiate and process subscriptions, the following information is used: subscriber’s email address and the ID of the post or comment (depending on the specific subscription being processed). In the event of a new subscription being initiated, we also collect some basic server data, including all of the subscribing user’s HTTP request headers, the IP address from which the subscribing user is viewing the page, and the URI which was given in order to access the page (REQUEST_URI and DOCUMENT_URI). This server data used for the exclusive purpose of monitoring and preventing abuse and spam.
Activity Tracked: Functionality cookies are set for a duration of 347 days to remember a visitor’s blog and post subscription choices if, in fact, they have an active subscription.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics sets cookies to help us accurately estimate the number of visitors to the website and volumes of usage. This is to ensure that the website is available when you want it and to help us understand what you want to use.
| Name | Expires | Purpose |
| _ga | 2 years | Distinguishes users |
| _gali | 30 seconds | Statistics on pages visited |
| _gat | 10 minutes | Throttles request rate |
How do I change my cookie settings?
Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org
To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout