Cookie Policy

Our Privacy Policy explains our principles when it comes to the collection, processing, and storage of your information. This policy specifically explains how we, our partners, and users of our services deploy cookies, as well as the options you have to control them.

What are cookies?

Cookies are small pieces of data, stored in text files, that are stored on your computer or other device when websites are loaded in a browser. They are widely used to "remember" you and your preferences, either for a single visit (through a "session cookie") or for multiple repeat visits (using a "persistent cookie"). They ensure a consistent and efficient experience for visitors, and perform essential functions such as allowing users to register and remain logged in. Cookies may be set by the site that you are visiting (known as "first party cookies"), or by third parties, such as those who serve content or provide advertising or analytics services on the website ("third party cookies"). Both websites and HTML emails may also contain other tracking technologies such as "web beacons" or "pixels." These are typically small transparent images that provide us with statistics, for similar purposes as cookies. They are often used in conjunction with cookies, though they are not stored on your computer in the same way. As a result, if you disable cookies, web beacons may still load, but their functionality will be restricted.

How we use cookies

We use cookies for a number of different purposes. Some cookies are necessary for technical reasons; some enable a personalized experience for both visitors and registered users; and some allow the display of advertising from selected third party networks. Some of these cookies may be set when a page is loaded, or when a visitor takes a particular action (clicking the "like" or "follow" button on a post, for example). Many of the cookies we use are only set if you are a registered user of our websites or apps (so you don’t have to log in every time, for example), while others are set whenever you visit one of our websites, irrespective of whether you have an account. For more information on the choices you have about the cookies we use, please see the Controlling Cookies section below.

Where we place cookies

We set cookies in a number of different locations across our services. These include:

  • On our website vgraphs.com.
  • In the administrative or your personal dashboards of our website.
  • On sites we host for our users.
  • On sites that use our apps or wigets.

The table below explains the types of cookies we use on our websites and why we use them.

Category of cookies Why we use these cookies
Strictly Necessary These cookies are essential for websites on our services to perform their basic functions. These include those required to allow registered users to authenticate and perform account related functions, as well as to save the contents of virtual "carts" on sites that have an ecommerce functionality.
Functionality These cookies are used to store preferences set by users such as account name, language, and location.
Security We use these cookies to help identify and prevent potential security risks.
Analytics and Performance Performance cookies collect information on how users interact with our websites, including what pages are visited most, as well as other analytical data. We use these details to improve how our websites function and to understand how users interact with them.
Advertising These cookies are used to display relevant advertising to visitors who use our services or visit websites we host or provide, as well as to understand and report on the efficacy of ads served on our websites. They track details such as the number of unique visitors, the number of times particular ads have been displayed, and the number of clicks the ads have received. They are also used to build user profiles, including showing you ads based on products you’ve viewed or acts you have taken on our (and other) websites. These are set by our websites and trusted third party networks, and are generally persistent in nature.
Third Party / Embedded Content We sometimes make use of different third party applications and services to enhance the experience of website visitors. These include social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter (through the use of sharing buttons), or embedded content from Youtube and Vimeo. As a result, cookies may be set by these third parties, and used by them to track your online activity. We have no direct control over the information that is collected by these cookies.

User Sites

In addition to the cookies set on our own sites, we utilize cookies for our web apps that are hosted on other websites. This tallies the unique numbers of visitors to a site, as well as the number from specific geographic locations. A visitor is counted when we see a user or browser for the first time in a given period.

Examples

Below are examples of the cookies set by our websites, with explanations of their purpose. Some of these cookies are set across our whole network, whereas some are specific to individual services (e.g. vgraphs.com, etc). Please note that this is not an exhaustive list, but rather aims to be representative. Information about cookies that may be set by third parties, such as our ads partners, is below. In addition, people and companies that use our services to publish or host their own sites may place additional cookies. We provide more information on these cookies below.

Advertising

Cookie Purpose
ads Tracks if a visitor has clicked an ad before.
lr_nw Counts and tracks pageviews on a website. Used to determine whether or not to show our Membership popup message.
wordpress_eli Reduces the display of ads for repeat visitors.

Reduces the display of ads for repeat visitors.

Please also see the section below on third party advertisements that you may see on our sites or sites that use our services.

Analytics and Performance

Cookie Purpose
__pdvt Used in log of Polldaddy survey data to aid in debugging customer problems
ab Used for "AB testing" of new features.
nux_flow_name Identifies which user signup flow was shown to the user.
tk_ni / tk_ai / tk_qs Gathers information for our own, first party analytics tool about how our services are used. A collection of internal metrics for user activity, used to improve user experience.
wp-affiliate-tracker Remembers the ID of the affiliate that referred the current user to WordPress.com, for example blog on vgraphs.com
utma / utmb / utmc / utmt / utmz / ga / gat / gid Google Analytics. Gathers information that helps us understand how visitors interact with our websites, which allow us to create a better experience for our visitors. Sites that embbed our content may also implement Google Analytics on their own websites.

Functionality

Cookie Purpose
laravel_session Stores a session variable to correctly display a website.
XSRF-TOKEN Stores a token to prevent attacks to the website.
akm_mobile Stores whether a user has chosen to view the mobile version of a website.
botdlang Used to track the language a user has selected to view popular blogs in.
*vgraphs* Used to save your preferences and settings.
*vgraphs_data* Used to remember your latest viewed agents.
USER_AUTH Login cookie used to identify a user.
logged_in* Checks whether or not the current visitor is a logged in.
settings-{user_id} Persists a user’s configuration.
myaction{id} Tracks whether or not a user has already performed an action.

Security

Cookie Purpose
csrftoken Python/Ajax security cookie.

Strictly Necessary

Cookie Purpose
country_code Used in order to determine whether or not the cookie banner should be shown.
accepted_cookies Remembers the state of visitor acceptance to the cookie banner. Only set when the visitor clicks Accept, Agree, Ok or close box (X).
twostep_auth Set when the user is logged in using two factor authentication.
test_cookie Checks if cookies are enabled to provide appropriate user experience.

Advertisements from Third Parties Ads Program

We operate our ads program in partnership with third party vendors. As part of the operation of our ads program, we use cookies to collect certain information. Advertising cookies enable us and our partners to serve ads and to personalize those ads based on information like visits to our sites and other sites on the Internet. Below is a representative list of our advertising program partners, along with information on the cookies that that each partner sets. The partners we work with change from time to time, and this is not an exhaustive list. Your choices to control cookies related to our ads program are described below.

Comments

Cookie Name Purpose
commentauthor{HASH} Remembers the value entered into the comment form's name field. Specific to the site from which it is set.
comment_authoremail{HASH} Remembers the value entered into the comment form's email field. Specific to the site from which it is set.
comment_authorurl{HASH} Remembers the value entered into the comment form's URL field. Specific to the site from which it is set.

Mobile Theme

Cookie Name Purpose
akm_mobile Remembers whether or not a user wishes to view the mobile version of a site.

Subscriptions

Cookie Name Purpose
*subscribe{HASH} Remembers the state of the post and comment subscription checkboxes.
*_state Remembers the state of the user's choices on particula website.
Cookie Name Purpose
eucookielaw Remembers the state of visitor acceptance to the EU Cookie Law banner.

Controlling Cookies

Visitors may wish to restrict the use of cookies or completely prevent them from being set. Most browsers provide for ways to control cookie behavior such as the length of time they are stored – either through built-in functionality or by utilizing third party plugins. If you disable cookies, please be aware that some of the features of our service may not function correctly. To find out more on how to manage and delete cookies, visit your web browser's help page or read your web browser's user manual. For more details on your choices regarding use of your web browsing activity for interest-based advertising visit youronlinechoices.eu (EU based) or optout.aboutads.info (US based). On a mobile device, you may also be to adjust your settings to limit ad tracking. You can opt out of Google Analytics by installing Google’s opt-out browser add-on.

Our Internal Analytics Tool

In order to better understand how our services are used, we monitor certain user activities that take place within our products, including page views and clicks on any links used when managing a site via our dashboards. We call each one of these actions an “event.” Analytics events are attached to your account and are handled via a first party system that vgraphs.com owns and maintains. In general, we record the following data for each event: IP address, your user ID and username, user agent, referring URL, timestamp of event, browser language, and country code. We use this information to improve our products, make our marketing to you more relevant, personalize your experience, and for the other purposes described in our Privacy Policy.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about our use of cookies, you can find the most relevant contact details in our Privacy Policy.

Automattic Inc. decided to make Privacy policy's and Cookies policy examples available under a Creative Commons Sharealike license, which means you’re more than welcome to use it and repurpose it for your own use, just make sure to replace references with ones to you, and you must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. They spent a lot of money and time on this Policy, and other people shouldn’t need to do the same.