Cookies used on our sites

This page sets out the cookies used by our sites, and the purpose of each one. It also gives some general information about cookies on associated sites, e.g. for the third-party services that we use to take payments.

You can block cookies using browser functionality. However, if you block necessary cookies, the site features listed below as depending on those cookies are likely to stop working properly. For background about cookies, try our general cookie information.

Necessary cookies are often referred to as "essential" cookies.

Your cookie preferences on our sites will determine which of these cookies are set. You can change these preferences using the panel that appears if you click on the cookie icon at the bottom left of most of our pages.

www.autism.org.uk - the main website

Necessary cookies

As explained above, these will be set unless you block them using settings in your browser:

Cookie	Expiry	Purpose
CMSCookieLevel	1 year	Records the user's current cookie settings.
ASP.NET_SessionId	session end	Keeps the user session ID for security reasons.
assets	1 year	Keeps a hashcode of the website assets (JS/CSS) in order to provide better performance.
colour_theme	1 year	Stores the user's current preferred colour theme - Vivid or Calm.
CMSCsrfCookie	session end	Stores a security token that the system uses to validate all form data submitted via POST requests. Helps to protect against cross-site request forgery.

Analytics cookies

If you additionally allow analytics cookies, these may be set, depending on what site areas and features you use.

Cookie	Expiry	Purpose	Type
Source	50 years	Stores the channel from which the visitor arrived as part of a campaign (e.g., email, Facebook, Twitter, etc.). Based on the utm_source query string parameter.	Analytics
Campaign	50 years	Stores the name of the campaign assigned to the visitor.	Analytics
Content	50 years	Stores the specific content item through which the visitor arrived as part of a campaign. Based on the utm_content query string parameter.	Analytics
TrackedCampaigns	20 minutes	Stores all the campaigns which should be tracked within a JavaScript snippet.	Analytics
UrlReferrer	1 day	Stores the URL referrer from which the user arrives on the website.	Analytics
CurrentContact	50 years	Stores the GUID of the contact related to the current site visitor. Used to track activities on the website.	Analytics
CMSAB<ABtestname>	2 months	For A/B testing different possible versions of pages. Used to track conversions and maintain consistent page content for each visitor. Stores data including the identifier of the page variant assigned to the visitor, the list of performed conversions, and an indicator of whether the visitor is included in A/B testing.	Analytics
CMSShoppingCart	1 year	Stores a GUID reference to the user's shopping cart. Allows the system to recover the shopping cart for customers who are not signed in, even after it is cleared from the site cache (for example if we have to restart the site systems).	Analytics
CMSUserPage	20 minutes	Stores the IDs (DocumentID, NodeID) of the last visited page. Used for logging landing and exit page web analytics and activities.	Analytics
CMSLandingPageLoaded	20 minutes	Indicates that the landing page has already been visited and the Landing page activity is not logged again for the current visitor. Expires after 20 minutes and the expiration period of the key is renewed every time the website is accessed again.	Analytics

Shared cookies used on all/many of our sites

Cookie name	Type	Description of its use
Shared cookies for Google Analytics:
__utma	Performance	Code representing our website, a code representing your device (mobile or computer) and how many times you have visited our website
__utmb	Performance	"session keep alive" just tracks the time you have spent on the last page you opened, if you keep browsing pages this keeps renewing its expiry 30 minutes into the future
__utmc	Performance	"session start" stores the time you entered the site
__utmt	Performance	Helps to categorise the requests made to the site
__utmz	Performance	"Campaign code" lets us know how you first found our website -if you searched for us using Google, what search terms you used, and if you clicked on a sponsored result

community.autism.org.uk - our online community for people with autism and their family and friends

Cookie name	Type	Description of its use
.te.dpr	Necessary	Used to set the screen proportions so that a page displays properly
.te.w	Necessary	Used to set the screen width so that a page displays properly
AuthorizationCookie	Necessary	Used to maintain sign-ins to the online community

learn.autism.org.uk - conference bookings

This platform is provided by Aventri. You can find more details about its cookies in the Aventri cookie policy.

Cookie name	Type	Description of its use
AWSALB	Necessary	Lets several Aventri servers share processing load in order to provide better performance
PHPSESSID	Necessary	Uses an anonymous identifier to remember key settings as you navigate web pages
regtoken	Necessary	Keeps track of your information while you are registering for an event
selectedlanguage	Necessary	Records your choice of language (or the default where no choice is offered)

act.autism.org.uk - Online campaigning service

Engaging Networks provide our online campaign actions using the domain act.autism.org.uk.

These cookies will only be set if you visit the Engaging Networks site.

Stored file name	Type	Description of its use
Jsessionid	Necessary	Uses a randomly-generated key to maintain the function of the website as you navigate web pages

Hosted services

Some third-party sites host, on our behalf, the services described below. You may also use these services in connection with other sites that you visit. As a result, these sites set their own cookies, which are not controlled by our cookie preferences.

Payment facilities

In our shop, including for membership, for donations and for other payments, we use third-party payment facilities. You make these payments on the following payment provider sites, where the provider's cookie policy will apply. Since these "third-party" cookies are controlled by the relevant site owner/provider, cookie preferences that you set on our site will not affect them.

PayPal (online payments using credit cards or your own PayPal account)

Please refer to PayPal's cookie policy.

RSM2000 (direct debits)

Cookie name	Type	Description of its use
SessionID	Necessary	Uses a randomly-generated key to maintain the function of the website as you navigate web pages

Third party cookies used on our sites

We also use the services of third-party suppliers who set cookies when you visit our website. These cookies are mainly used for reporting and advertising purposes, so that we can improve the way we communicate with our supporters.

Each of these suppliers is responsible for the cookies that they place onto your device, has its own policy to highlight their use, and will typically provide similar services on many of the sites that you visit. If you wish to opt out of your data being collected by these suppliers, please visit their respective sites below to get details on how to do this.

Cookie name	Description of use
CrazyEgg	Crazy Egg is a tool used to measure the way visitors interact and engage with certain pages on the website. We use cookies to see where users have clicked so that we can make it easier for our supporters to find the information they are looking for.
Facebook	Facebook is a social media platform we use to communicate with our supporters through both unpaid posts and paid advertising. We use cookies to measure the effectiveness of paid advertising on Facebook to ensure the money we spend is used effectively. They also enable us to serve adverts with content that may be of interest based on previous pages users have visited. To find out more about Facebook advertising and how to opt-out, please visit: https://www.facebook.com/help/568137493302217
Google Ads	Google Ads is an online advertising service developed by Google, which we use to run search, display and video adverts, within the Google network. We use cookies to measure the effectiveness of paid advertising on Google Ads to ensure the money we spend is used effectively. They also enable us to serve personalised adverts to audiences with content that may be of interest based on previous pages users have visited on our website. To find out how to opt out of being served personalised adverts, please visit: https://support.google.com/ads/answer/2662922?hl=en-GB We also use Google Ads to run adverts that may appear to audiences who may not have previously visited our website. To find out how to opt out of being served other adverts, please visit here for information: https://support.google.com/ads/answer/2662922?hl=en-GB
Google Analytics	Google Analytics is a web analytics service provided by Google inc. that enables us to measure how people use our website using cookies. We use this information to improve our website experience for website visitors and to measure the effectiveness of our online advertising. We can also use these cookies to serve relevant advertisements to people who have interacted with specific sections of the site, or to exclude those audiences from advertising. For website visitors who have explicitly opted in to Google’s data privacy policy, Google will associate your IP address with other data held by Google in order to identify you across multiple devices. You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser. You may also stop the transmission of information generated by the cookies about your use of the website and of your IP address to Google, by downloading and installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on available here https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout
SmartSurvey	SmartSurvey allow site owners to invite visitors to give feedback. We use their services occasionally, either for site feedback, or to allow visitors to give views relating to our campaigning activities.