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.

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.

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 (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.

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

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

Required

These cookies are essential for our websites and services to perform basic functions and are necessary for us to operate certain features. These include those required to allow registered users to authenticate and perform account-related functions, store preferences set by users such as account name, language, and location, and ensure our services are operating properly.

Analytics and Performance

These cookies allow us to optimize performance by collecting information on how users interact with our websites, including which 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 set by us and our advertising partners to provide you with relevant content and to understand that content’s effectiveness. They may be used to collect information about your online activities over time and across different websites to predict your preferences and to display more relevant advertisements to you. These cookies also allow a profile to be built about you and your interests and enable personalized ads to be shown to you based on your profile.

In addition to the cookies set on our own sites, we utilize cookies for our Site Statics feature. 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.

Advertisements from Third Parties Through Automattic’s Ads Program

Our mission is to democratize publishing. So that we can offer free access to create a website using WordPress.com, we show ads on some of our users’ sites. Our users may also choose to place ads on their site through our ads program. Additionally, we also show ads from our ads program on some of our own websites, and in emails.

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.

You may see a “cookie bannerssssss” on our users’ websites, particularly if you are in the European Union. If so, then our ad program does not set, or allow our ad partners to set, cookies that are used to show you targeted ads before you accept.

When you consent in this manner, we and our advertising partners may set third party advertising cookies in order to show you personalized ads on the website you are visiting and, if you are visiting a site in the WordPress.com network, on all websites within that network of sites. You’ll know that a site is in the WordPress.com network because it will have a WordPress.com subdomain (e.g., example.wordpress.com). For other sites that participate in our ads program, your consent is only for personalized ads on the specific site you are visiting.

For visitors to sites in the WordPress.com network:

You can manage your privacy choices for third party advertising cookies for sites in the WordPress.com network by clicking “Learn More” on the banner, which will bring up our consent management platform (CMP). You can also adjust your settings for sites in the WordPress.com network at any time by clicking on the “Privacy” link displayed beneath every ad.

Other Choices:

We also set a cookie to help us understand how visitors engage with websites that participate in our ad program. When you opt out, we replace the unique value for that cookie with an opt-out value. The opt-out works across all websites in our ads program. Please note that this option is browser-specific, so if you use a different device or browser or clear your cookies, then you will need to repeat the process.