Safety, privacy and cookies

Safety This site does not come within the scope of UK's Online Safety Bill, and is therefore not subject to its requirements.
Privacy We do not collect personal information on visitors. We do not collect IP addresses. We do not share any statistical data on the usage of the site with other websites, companies or individuals.
Cookies The CLAG website uses analytics cookies; these allow us to count page visits and traffic sources so we can measure and hopefully improve the performance of the site. The service is provided by Google Analytics. The cookies used are:

Name Content and purpose Expires
__utma randomly generated number, updated on each page view, used to ascertain the number of times you visit a page 2 years
__utmb
__utmc
randomly generated number, used to calculate how long your visit takes 30 minutes
__utmz randomly generated number, used to ascertain which search engine (if any) you used, what link you clicked on, what keyword (if any) you used, and where in the world you are accessing from. The cookie is updated with each page view. 6 months

The law relating to the above cookies requires that they be used only with your consent. Views on the nature of such consent vary across EU Member States. UK's Information Commissioner's Office is receptive to the notion of implied consent being acceptable for cookies, particularly those used solely for anonymised analytics purposes – although they do record your IP address, such cookies cannot be used to identify you personally. We do not host any 3rd party cookies or scripts that read the Google Analytics cookies, and Google does not share this site's analytics data with any other party.

If you continue to use the CLAG website, we'll assume you're happy to receive the analytics cookies. If you do not wish Google to receive data from the analytics cookies, Google has made available a Google Analytics Opt-out plug-in for all common browsers. (See further information on Google Analytics cookies.)

The situation on third-party cookies is as follows:

Youtube  The Youtube videos work fine even if you have blocked third-party cookies. If you have not blocked third party cookies, visiting that page and playing the video allows Youtube to set the following Youtube cookies:
  • VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE; this persistent cookie has a duration of 7 months, and seems to determine which version of the Youtube homepage you get if you visit it;

  • use_hitbox; this session-only cookie seems to allows the counter for the video to increment on the Youtube site;

  • GEO; this session-only cookie appears to allow the video to be viewed regardless of the geolocation of the user.

The above cookies are not set until the Youtube video is played because Youtube videos on the CLAG site are embedded in 'privacy-enhanced mode'.

If you have not blocked third-party cookies, and you do not wish to receive Youtube's cookies, I do not yet know of a method of changing the page in question to prevent you watching the video, because this will depend on the setting of your browser. (If you do not want to receive Youtube's cookies, you can do this by blocking them in your browser settings. If you do accept them, you can also set your browser to always delete the cookies by ticking the 'Clear cookies and other site data when I close my browser' or 'Allow local data to be set for the current session only' options.)

The above information on cookies reflects the legal requirements of the The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) (Amendment) Regulations 2011.


first issued December 2011
revised 2 January 2012 to notify the introduction of analytics cookies
details on GA cookies expanded 17 January 2012
details on GA cookies further expanded 8 February 2012
GA opt-out browser plug-in notified 6 March 2012
Youtube videos now embedded in privacy-enhanced mode 15 March 2012
Twitter cookies notified 18 March 2012
caveat on Twitter cookies notified 20 March 2012
Twitter information removed 22 May 2012
implied consent clarified 5 July 2012
Flash reference deleted January 2021
Online Safety Bill cited March 2022