What Is a Cookie?

A cookie, is a simple text file sent from a website and stored in a user’s web browser while a user is browsing the site. It typically contains two pieces of information: a site name and unique user ID.  The information the cookie contains is set by the server and it can be used by that server whenever the user visits the site.

Cookies are not software, cannot carry viruses, and cannot install malware on your computer.

How are Cookies used on the Pancreatic Cancer UK website?

When you visit Pancreatic Cancer UK’s website, a cookie could be placed on your device for one of the following reasons:

  • To make the site work properly and allow you to make use of the secure online services we provide eg. our donate and event sign up forms
  • To track what areas of the website interest you the most so that we can present you with related content online
  • To collect information about your use of our website which are anonymised and used to help us improve your experience online.
  • To remember your preferences and make the website easier for you to navigate
  • Cookies that are placed by third party services that we use on our website such as You Tube and Facebook. We may use these to enhance information that we present online.

Categories of Cookies used by Pancreatic Cancer UK

  • “Strictly Necessary” Cookies – These cookies are central to you being able to use and move around our website and for you to use specific features such as adding items to your basket through our online shop.
  • “Performance” Cookies – These cookies collect information about how you use our website eg. they monitor which pages you visit the most. Please note that these cookie’s don’t collect information that would personally identify you, they just help us to analyse which pages are the most popular on our website.
  • “Functionality” Cookies – These cookies remember choices made by you/how you’ve used our website in the past. They remember, for example, what font size you’ve chosen so that your use of our website is more personalised.
  • “Targeting” Cookies – These cookies collect information if you choose to share a page from our website or if you use a social media site such as Facebook. These cookies will track how you use our website and will then show you associated content on other parts of the internet. They will also be used to determine the content of advertisements that are displayed to you on other sites. We will also use this information on an anonymised basis to compile “lookalike” audiences to approach new audiences on social media sites with similar interests to yours.

Some of our pages display embedded content such as You Tube video and Twitter feeds which means that you might receive cookies from these websites. We don’t have any control over the publication of third-party cookies – for more information about their use of cookies, please visit the relevant sites.

If the settings on your software that you are using to view Pancreatic Cancer UK’s website (your browser) are adjusted to accept cookies we take this, and your continued use of our website, to mean that we have your consent to set cookies. You can still view some of our website without cookies (please see below) but the functionality of the site is often reduced without them.

Tracking

We use a number of technologies such as pixels and web beacons to monitor and make improvements to your experience of our website, the quality of the services we provide and to monitor the success of our digital advertising campaigns.

The Main Cookies that we use:

Cookie Purpose
ASP.NET_SessionId Store information about the current session in the browser.
NID Google: “The NID cookie contains a unique ID Google uses to remember your preferences and other information, such as your preferred language (e.g. English), how many search results you wish to have shown per page (e.g. 10 or 20), and whether or not you wi
__RequestVerificationToken This is an anti-forgery token. This helps the website guarantee that any details submitted throughout the site (whether it be via forms or other means) are genuine, and haven’t been modified to contain any malicious links etc.
PCUKStyleCookie This is used to store the preferred colour scheme for viewing the site.
1P_JAR Google: “Profiling Third-party cookies”
_ga Google 3rd party: “These cookies are used to gather website statistics, and track conversion rates.”
_gat Google Analytics: “Google Analytics is Google’s analytics tool that helps website and app owners to understand how their visitors engage with their properties. It may use a set of cookies to collect information and report website usage statistics.
_gid Google Analytics: “Google Analytics is Google’s analytics tool that helps website and app owners to understand how their visitors engage with their properties. It may use a set of cookies to collect information and report website usage statistics.
CONSENT Google: “Profiling Third-party cookies”
_stid .sharethis.com: _stid is a random unique identifier not tied to any personally identifiable information (PII).
In the U.S., ShareThis.com uses this data to help advertisers deliver targeted messages to users. ShareThis.com do not use the data outside of the U.S. at this point in time.
_unam sharethis.com: _unam helps ShareThis.com count number of unique users that share content and how many page views are generated from the resulting share.
In the U.S., ShareThis.com uses this data to help advertisers deliver targeted messages to users. ShareThis.com do not use the data outside of the U.S. at this point in time.
_hp2id Heap analytics: Used to track user behaviour on websites.
_hp2_props Heap analytics: Used to track user behaviour on websites.
_hp2_ses_props Heap analytics: Used to track user behaviour on websites.
_csrf Heap analytics: Used to track user behaviour on websites.
__ar_v4 Google 3rd party: “These cookies are used to gather website statistics, and track conversion rates.”
raygun4js-userid Heap analytics: Used to track user behaviour on websites.
_vwo_uuid_v2 This cookie is associated with the product Visual Website Optimiser, by USA based Wingify. The tool helps site owners measure the performance of different versions of web pages. This cookie ensures a visitor always sees the same version of a page and is used to track behaviour to measure the performance of different page versions.
UID scorecardresearch.com: “We use the information that we collect through web tags and cookies and from third parties to operate and improve our business including to produce reports, research and information products that we share with companies that are our customers. These reports help our clients meet their business goals by providing them with a better understanding of digital consumption behavior, trends and consumer preferences. These reports do not contain personal information, and we may use and disclose such reports at our discretion. We do not use the information that we collect to target advertising or other content to your computer or device. Our partners may use the information that we provide to them to improve their own advertising campaigns.”
UIDR scorecardresearch.com: “We use the information that we collect through web tags and cookies and from third parties to operate and improve our business including to produce reports, research and information products that we share with companies that are our customers. These reports help our clients meet their business goals by providing them with a better understanding of digital consumption behavior, trends and consumer preferences. These reports do not contain personal information, and we may use and disclose such reports at our discretion. We do not use the information that we collect to target advertising or other content to your computer or device. Our partners may use the information that we provide to them to improve their own advertising campaigns.”
IDE Google Advertising via doubleclick.net: “One of the main advertising cookies on non-Google sites is named ‘IDE‘ and is stored in browsers under the domain doubleclick.net. “,
“…For example, we use such cookies to remember your most recent searches.
mc_mixpanel_c These web analytics cookies, provided by MixPanel, are used to collect information on users’ interaction with our website.
mp_mixpanel_ These web analytics cookies, provided by MixPanel, are used to collect information on users’ interaction with our website.
_cc_dc crwdcntrl.net is a domain used by Lotame which is an advertising company that is part of a network of sites, cookies, and other technologies used to track you, what you do and what you click on, as you go from site to site, surfing the Web. Over time, sites like crwdcntrl.net can help make an online profile of you usually including the sites you visit, your searches, purchases, and other behavior. Your profile can then be exchanged and sold between various companies like crwdcntrl.net as well as being sold to other advertisers and marketers.
_cc_id crwdcntrl.net is a domain used by Lotame which is an advertising company that is part of a network of sites, cookies, and other technologies used to track you, what you do and what you click on, as you go from site to site, surfing the Web. Over time, sites like crwdcntrl.net can help make an online profile of you usually including the sites you visit, your searches, purchases, and other behaviour. Your profile can then be exchanged and sold between various companies like crwdcntrl.net as well as being sold to other advertisers and marketers.
_cc_cc crwdcntrl.net is a domain used by Lotame which is an advertising company that is part of a network of sites, cookies, and other technologies used to track you, what you do and what you click on, as you go from site to site, surfing the Web. Over time, sites like crwdcntrl.net can help make an online profile of you usually including the sites you visit, your searches, purchases, and other behavior. Your profile can then be exchanged and sold between various companies like crwdcntrl.net as well as being sold to other advertisers and marketers.
_cc_aud crwdcntrl.net is a domain used by Lotame which is an advertising company that is part of a network of sites, cookies, and other technologies used to track you, what you do and what you click on, as you go from site to site, surfing the Web. Over time, sites like crwdcntrl.net can help make an online profile of you usually including the sites you visit, your searches, purchases, and other behavior. Your profile can then be exchanged and sold between various companies like crwdcntrl.net as well as being sold to other advertisers and marketers.
SEUNCY semasio.net – Registers a unique ID that identifies the user’s device for return visits.
sess adnxs.com – Used to check if the user’s browser supports cookies
TapAd_DID tapad.com – Used to determine what type of devices (smartphones, tablets, computers, TVs etc.) is used by a user.
TapAd_TS tapad.com – Used to determine what type of devices (smartphones, tablets, computers, TVs etc.) is used by a user.
ud exelator.com – Collects anonymous data related to the user’s visits to the website, such as the number of visits, average time spent on the website and what pages have been loaded, with the purpose of displaying targeted ads.
EE exelator.com – Unclassified
TDCPM adsrvr.org – Registers a unique ID that identifies a returning user’s device. The ID is used for targeted ads.
TDID adsrvr.org – Registers a unique ID that identifies a returning user’s device. The ID is used for targeted ads.
Facebook Pixel The Facebook pixel has a direct connection to Facebook’s server. The fact you have visited our website and the pages you have visited are transmitted to Facebook’s server. This means that you will receive ads on Facebook which we think you’ll be interested in, based on your use of our website and your engagement with our content. Facebook will also use this information to create ‘lookalike’ audiences based on user data from our website, and user data from our Facebook page. This helps us to make our advertising more relevant for the end user.

How to Turn Off Cookies

How to turn off cookies in Internet Explorer:

  1. In Internet Explorer, click Internet Options on the Tools menu, and then click the Security tab.
  2. Click the Web content zone you want, and then click Custom Level.
  3. Under Cookies, click the options you want, click OK, and then click OK.

How to turn off cookies in Mozilla Firefox:

  1. At the top of the Firefox window, click on the Firefox button and then select Options
  2. Select the Privacy panel.
  3. Set Firefox will: to Use custom settings for history.
  4. Check mark Accept cookies from sites to enable Cookies, and uncheck it to disable them.
  5. If you are troubleshooting problems with cookies, make sure Accept third party cookies is also check marked. For more information, see  Disable third-party cookies in Firefox to stop some types of tracking by advertisers.
  6. Choose how long cookies are allowed to be stored:
    1. Keep until: they expire: Each cookie will be removed when it reaches its expiration date, which is set by the site that sent the cookie.
    2. Keep until: I close Firefox: The cookies that are stored on your computer will be removed when Firefox is closed.
    3. Keep until: ask me every time: Displays an alert every time a website tries to send a cookie, and asks you whether or not you want to store it.
    4. Click OK to close the Options window

How to turn off cookies in Google Chrome:

1. Click the Chrome menu  on the browser toolbar.
2. Select Settings.
3. Click Show advanced settings.
4. In the “Privacy” section, click the Content settings button.
5. In the “Cookies” section, you can change the following cookies settings:

Delete cookies
Block cookies by default
Allow cookies by default
Keep cookies and site data by default until you quit your browser
Make exceptions for cookies from specific websites or domains

Useful Links

For more information about cookies and EU regulations, please visit the following websites: