What cookies Mortgage Advice Bureau use and why

Cookies are small text files, which often include a unique identifier that is sent by a web server to your computer, mobile phone or any other internet enabled device (“device”) when you visit a website. Cookies are widely used in order to make websites work efficiently and help provide us with business and marketing information to enable us to make informed decisions on the development of our websites.

We use the following types of cookies:

Essential – Necessary cookies help make a website usable by enabling basic functions like page navigation and access to secure areas of the website. The website cannot function properly without these cookies.

Performance – Performance cookies help owners understand how the website is used by visitors. This information can then be used to improve the way the website works.

Preference – Preference cookies enable a website to remember information that changes the way the website behaves or looks, like your preferred language or the region that you are in.

Statistics – Statistic cookies help website owners to understand how visitors interact with websites by collecting and reporting information anonymously.

Marketing – Marketing cookies are used to track visitors across websites. The intention is to display ads that are relevant and engaging for the individual user and thereby more valuable for publishers and third-party advertisers.

_cf_bm   Used to distinguish between humans and bots. This is beneficial for the website, in order to make valid reports on the use of their website. Essential 1 day

_RequestVerificationToken Used to prevent CSRF attacks Essential Session

JSESSIONID    Used by metrics.responsetap.com to preserve user states across page requests Essential Session

rc::a   Used by Google to distinguish between humans and bots  Essential Persistent

rc::b   Used by Google to distinguish between humans and bots  Essential Session

rc::c   Used by Google to distinguish between humans and bots  Essential Session

FontsLoaded    Used to inform the site that fonts have successfully loaded   Essential      Session

_grecaptcha     Used to distinguish between humans and bots. This is beneficial for the website, in order to make valid reports on the use of their website. Essential Persistent

_GRECAPTCHA

       Used to distinguish between humans and bots. This is beneficial for the website, in order to make valid reports on the use of their website. Essential 179 days

ARRAffinity Used to distribute traffic to the website on several servers in order to optimise response times.     Essential Session

ARRAffinitySameSite Used to distribute traffic to the website on several servers in order to optimise response times. Essential Session

ASP.NET_SessionId

       Used to preserve the visitor’s session state across page requests  Essential      Session

AWSALBTGCORS     Used to register which server-cluster is serving the visitor. This is used in context with load balancing, in order to optimize user experience.     Essential      6 days

CookieConsent Used to store the user’s cookie consent state for the current domain      Essential 1 year

FontsLoaded    Used to keep track of special fonts used on the website for internal analysis. The cookie does not register any visitor data. Essential Session

rc::a   Used to distinguish between humans and bots. This is beneficial for the website, in order to make valid reports on the use of their website. Essential Persistent

rc::b   Used to distinguish between humans and bots.   Essential Session

rc::c   Used to distinguish between humans and bots.   Essential Session

test Used to detect if the visitor has accepted the marketing category in the cookie banner. This cookie is necessary for GDPR-compliance of the website. Essential      Persistent

_adiCookieCheck Used to provide statistics of what pages the user has visited and how often an ad click leads to a sale or other actions Statistics Session

_at.hist.#

       Used by the social sharing platform AddThis to store the user’s usage history of the AddThis sharing widget Statistics Persistent

_dc_gtm_UA-# Used by Google Tag Manager to control the loading of a Google Analytics script tag.   Statistics 1 day

_ga Used to register a unique ID that is used to generate statistical data on how the visitor uses the website. Statistics 2 years

_ga_#     Used by Google Analytics to collect data on the number of times a user has visited the website as well as dates for the first and most recent visit.  Statistics 2 years

_gat   Used by Google Analytics to throttle request rate      Statistics 1 day

_gid   Used to generate statistical data on how visitor uses the website Statistics 1 day

_hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress

       Used to count how many times a website has been visited by different visitors – this is done by assigning the visitor an ID, so the visitor does not get registered twice.      Statistics 1 day

_hjFirstSeen

       Used to determine if the visitor has visited the website before, or if it is a new visitor on the website. Statistics 1 day

_hjid  Used to obtain data on visitor behaviour.   Statistics 1 year / Persistent

_hjIncludedInPageviewSample     Used to determine if the user’s navigation should be registered in a certain statistical place holder. Statistics 1 day

_hjIncludedInSessionSample  Used to register data on visitors’ website-behaviour. This is used for internal analysis and website optimization. Statistics 1 day

_hjSession_#   Used to collect statistics on the visitor’s visits to the website, such as the number of visits, average time spent on the website and what pages have been read.      Statistics 1 day

_hjSessionUser_# Used to collect statistics on the visitor’s visits to the website, such as the number of visits, average time spent on the website and what pages have been read.      Statistics 1 year

_vwo_uuid_v2  Used to optimise website relevance to visitor  Statistics 1 year

collect     Used to send data to Google Analytics on user’s device and behaviour      Statistics Session

v.gif   Used by visualwebsiteoptimizer.com to optimise website relevance to visitor      Statistics Session

_hjTLDTest Used to register statistical data on users’ behaviour on the website. Used for internal analytics by the website operator.

Statistics Session

optimizelyBuckets Used to store settings on Optimizely user experience experiments and variations that the visitor has been bucketed into. This ensures the visitor consistently sees the same variation, even over multiple sessions. Statistics 10 years

optimizelyEndUserId Used to measure how selected users react to targeted changes to the website’s content and functionality, in order to determine what variation is most efficacious in terms of converting users to customers.  Statistics 10 years

optimizelyPendingLogEvents  Used by Optimizely as a cache of a user’s actions between tracking calls.   Statistics 1 day

optimizelySegments  Used by Optimizely to store the user’s audience and dimension information (e.g., browser, campaign, mobile, source type, custom dimensions).      Statistics 10 years

vuid   Used to collect data on the user’s visits to the website e.g. which pages have been read  Statistics 2 years      

fr   Used by Facebook to deliver adverts     Marketing   3 months

IDE Used by Google DoubleClick to report user’s actions with ads     Marketing   1 year

MUID Used by bing.com for Microsoft to track user across multiple domains  Marketing      1 year

VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE  Used by YouTube to estimate the user’s bandwidth for videos      Marketing   179 days

YSC  Used by YouTube to log statistics on what YouTube videos the user has seen      Marketing   Session

__atuvc  Used to update the counter of a website’s social sharing features.  Marketing      13 months

__atuvs  Used to ensure that the updated counter is displayed to the user if a page is shared with the social sharing service, AddThis. Marketing   1 day

_at.cww

       Used by the social sharing platform AddThis.  Marketing   Persistent

_fbp  Used by Facebook to deliver a series of advertisement products such as real time bidding from third party advertisers  Marketing   3 months

_gaexp   Used by Google Analytics to determine if the visitor is involved in their marketing experiments  Marketing   19 days

_gcl_au  Used by Google AdSense for experimenting with advertisement efficiency across websites using their services Marketing   3 months

_uetsid   Used to collect data on visitor behaviour from multiple websites, in order to present more relevant advertisement – This also allows the website to limit the number of times that they are shown the same advertisement. Also used to track visitors on multiple websites, in order to present relevant advertisement based on the visitor’s preferences.      Marketing   1 day / Persistent

_uetsid_exp Used to contain the expiry-date for the cookie with corresponding name.      Marketing   Persistent

_uetvid   Used to track visitors on multiple websites in order to present relevant advertisement based on the visitor’s preferences Marketing   1 year / Persistent

_uetvid_exp Used to contain the expiry-date for the cookie with corresponding name      Marketing   Persistent

adiLP Used in context with behavioral tracking by the website to register the user’s behavior and navigation across multiple websites and ensure no tracking errors occur when the user has multiple browser-tabs open Marketing   1 day

adiS  Used in context with behavioral tracking by the website to register the user’s behavior and navigation across multiple websites and ensure no tracking errors occur when the user has multiple browser-tabs open Marketing   1 day

adiV  Used in context with behavioral tracking by the website to register the user’s behavior and navigation across multiple websites and ensure no tracking errors occur when the user has multiple browser-tabs open Marketing   1 year

adiVi Used in context with behavioral tracking by the website to register the user’s behavior and navigation across multiple websites and ensure no tracking errors occur when the user has multiple browser-tabs open Marketing   1 day

at-rand    Used by the social sharing platform AddThis   Marketing   Persistent

f24_autoId  Registers user behaviour and navigation on the website, and any interaction with active campaigns. This is used for optimizing advertisement and for efficient retargeting. Marketing   10 years

f24_personId    Registers user behaviour and navigation on the website, and any interaction with active campaigns. This is used for optimizing advertisement and for efficient retargeting.  Marketing   10 years

IDE Used by Google DoubleClick to register and report the website user’s actions after viewing or clicking one of the advertiser’s ads with the purpose of measuring the efficacy of an ad and to present targeted ads to the user. Marketing   1 year

loc Geolocation, which is used to help providers determine how users who share information with each other are geographically located (state level).     Marketing   1 year

MUID Used widely by Microsoft as a unique user ID. The cookie enables user tracking by synchronising the ID across many Microsoft domains.  Marketing   1 year

optimizely_data$$first_session

       Used for targeted advertising. Marketing   Session

pageViewCookie  Used to register a unique ID that identifies the user’s device during return visits. Used for conversion tracking and to measure the efficacy of online ads.      Marketing   Persistent

SSID Used to register a unique ID that is used by Google to keep statistics of how the visitor uses YouTube videos across different websites. Marketing   1 year

test_cookie Used to check if the user’s browser supports cookies.  Marketing   1 day

RUL  Used by DoubleClick to determine whether website advertisement has been properly displayed, and to make their marketing efforts more efficient  Marketing   1 year

uvc Used to detect how often the social sharing service, AddThis, encounters the same user. Marketing   1 year

VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE  Used to estimate the users’ bandwidth on pages with integrated YouTube videos.  Marketing   179 days

ytidb::LAST_RESULT_ENTRY_KEY Used to store the user’s video player preferences using embedded YouTube video. Marketing   Persistent

xtc Used to register the user’s sharing of content via social media.   Marketing   1 year

yt.innertube::nextId

       Used for registering a unique ID to keep statistics of what videos from YouTube the user has seen  Marketing   Persistent

yt.innertube::requests

       Used for registering a unique ID to keep statistics of what videos from YouTube the user has seen  Marketing   Persistent

yt-remote-cast-available Used to store the user’s video player preferences using embedded YouTube video. Marketing   Session

yt-remote-cast-installed Used to store the user’s video player preferences using embedded YouTube video. Marketing   Session

yt-remote-connected-devices  Used to store the user’s video player preferences using embedded YouTube video. Marketing   Persistent

yt-remote-device-id   Used to store the user’s video player preferences using embedded YouTube video. Marketing   Persistent

yt-remote-fast-check-period Used to store the user’s video player preferences using embedded YouTube video. Marketing   Session

yt-remote-session-app   Used to store the user’s video player preferences using embedded YouTube video. Marketing   Session

yt-remote-session-name      Used to store the user’s video player preferences using embedded YouTube video. Marketing   Session

How to withdraw consent to, control and/or delete cookies

It is possible to remove cookies or block them from recording this information. You also have the option of blocking third party cookies only.

This option is generally found within the Options menu then Privacy section of your particular browser. Each browser is slightly different and constantly updating.

For more information consult the Help menu of your browser. The links below provide information on *how to manage cookies on popular browsers:

• Google Chrome
• Microsoft Edge
• Mozilla Firefox
• Microsoft Internet Explorer
• Opera
• Apple Safari

To find information relating to other browsers, visit the browser developer’s website.

This information has been provided to show our commitment to legislation regarding cookie awareness so that you can understand what cookies we use and why we use them. This ensures transparency in the data collected on you.

Further information

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-pecr/guidance-on-the-use-of-cookies-and-similar-technologies/

http://www.allaboutcookies.org

This policy was last updated 2nd August 2022