Privacy and Cookies
In this section you will find information on what cookies may be set when you visit a BBC website and how to reject or delete those cookies. If you wish to read the BBC's Cookies Policy, this can be found in section 12 of the Privacy Policy.
The BBC will not use cookies to collect personally identifiable information about you. However, if you wish to restrict or block the cookies which are set by BBC websites, or indeed any other website, you can do this through your browser settings. The Help function within your browser should tell you how.
Alternatively, you may wish to visit www.aboutcookies.org which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of browsers. You will also find details on how to delete cookies from your machine as well as more general information about cookies.
Please be aware that restricting cookies may impact on the functionality of the BBC website.
If you wish to view your cookie code, just click on a cookie to open it. You'll see a short string of text and numbers. The numbers are your identification card, which can only be seen by the server that gave you the cookie.
For information on how to do this on the browser of your mobile phone you will need to refer to your handset manual.
To totally opt-out of our suppliers collecting any data regarding your interaction on bbc.co.uk, please refer to section 3.2.
The BBC uses the Adobe Flash Player to deliver services, such as the BBC iPlayer, throughout the site. To improve user experience, Local Shared Objects - or Flash Cookies as they are commonly known - are employed to provide features such as auto-resume and for saving your preferences. Flash Cookies are stored on a user's terminal much the same as cookies are, however it is not possible to manage them at browser level in the same way.
How to disable Flash Cookies:
The Adobe website provides comprehensive information on how to delete or disable Flash cookies either for a specific domain like bbc.co.uk or for all websites - see http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/526/52697ee8.html for details. Please be aware that restricting the use of Flash Cookies may affect the features available to you for Flash based applications such as the BBC iPlayer.
Please note that if you disable your Flash cookies for the BBC website you will be unable to play content on the BBC media players (including iPlayer). This is a temporary issue and more information is available on our Internet Blog at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2010/06/lso_flash_cookies_and_media_pl.html
3.1 Cookies set by Third Parties
To support our journalism, we sometimes embed photos and video content from websites such as YouTube and Flickr. As a result, when you visit a page with content embedded from, for example, YouTube or Flickr, you may be presented with cookies from these websites. The BBC does not control the dissemination of these cookies. You should check the third party websites for more information about these.
UPDATE: News Website sharing tools
We would like to draw your attention to the fact that the BBC website now carries embedded 'share' buttons to enable users of the site to easily share articles with their friends through a number of popular social networks. These sites may set a cookie when you are also logged in to their service. The BBC does not control the dissemination of these cookies and you should check the relevant third party website for more information about these.
3.2 Cookies set by BBC Contractors:
The BBC uses a number of suppliers who also set cookies on the BBC website on its behalf. However, please be aware that which cookies are set may depend on whether you are a UK visitor or a non-UK visitor (viewing the International version of the website).
1) The following cookies may be set for both UK visitors and non-UK visitors:
These include:
Nielsen//NetRatings, Quantcast and SageMetrics
These are independent measurement and research companies. They gather data regarding the visitors to BBC sites on our behalf using cookies, log file data and code which is embedded on our website. The BBC uses this type of information to help improve the services it provides to its users. Quantcast only gathers data regarding non-UK-based visitors to the international version of the BBC site.
If you would like more information about the cookies used by these companies how to opt out, please see their individual privacy policies:
UK based visitors:
Non-UK based visitors:
Nedstat
Nedstat, an independent measurement and research company, gathers information regarding visitor activity on the BBC's websites and other BBC online services. Data is gathered on the BBC's behalf using cookies, log file data, and code that is embedded on our websites. The BBC uses this information to help improve the services it provides to its users.
Bango
An external BBC supplier that provides a unique identifier to each modile phone user of bbc.co.uk in order for the BBC to recognise revisiting users and personalise their user experience.
Doubleclick
Doubleclick 'Spotlight Tags' are used to measure the effectiveness of online marketing campaigns for the BBC. Double Click is also used by BBC World Ltd and BBC Worldwide Ltd (BBCW) as they publish advertising on bbc.com when the site is accessed outside the UK. This service gathers information regarding visits made by international users which is used to decide on the insertion of adverts. For information on the cookie set by Doubleclick plus information on how to opt out please go to http://www.doubleclick.com/privacy/dart_adserving.aspx
2) The following cookies are set ONLY for users outside of the UK who will be visiting the international version of the website:
Ad Serving (non-targeted)
The advertisements seen by international users of the site are served by a number of third party ad serving providers, including DoubleClick, Advertising.com, Adviva.net (Specific Media), AdRevolver (BlueLithium-Yahoo!), 247realmedia.com and Eyeblaster, amongst others. The cookies accompanying the ads allow them and their advertisers to monitor the effectiveness of the ads (e.g. by using statistical analysis cookies) and make the ads more relevant to you (e.g. if you use our sites from outside of the UK, you may get ads from your local country). If you would like more information about the cookies used by the providers listed above, please see their privacy policies at:
Ad Serving (targeted) - AudienceScience Inc. (formerly Revenue Science, Inc.)
This company uses cookies to discover general information about the pages on "bbc.com" that you visit and it also processes IP addresses to collect other non-personally identifiable information in order to place you in a "market segment". This includes data about the country, city or region where you are located and your domain name (e.g. what ISP you use). It then places advertisements onto "bbc.com" which it believes people in your market segment will find relevant. If you would like more information about the cookies used by AudienceScience and how to opt out, please see their Privacy Policy at: http://audiencescience.com/privacy.asp.
Information (IP addresses and information in other cookies on our sites) that AudienceScience collects is transferred to them in the United States, and BBCW confirm that AudienceScience satisfies the EU's data protection requirements through its registration with the US Department of Commerce's "safe harbor" framework. Data is sometimes shared with AudienceScience's sub-contractors in India who also contractually satisfy the EU's data protection requirements.
Statistics - Omniture (Visual Sciences)
This company provides anonymised statistical information to BBC Worldwide Limited ("BBCW"), about users outside of the UK only. They process IP addresses and information from other cookies used on "bbc.com", BBCW's international online service for users outside of the UK, so BBCW know how many page views it has, the number of international users, what browsers international users are using (so BBCW can target resources in the right way to maximise compatibility for the majority of international users) and in which country, city or region international users are located.
This statistical information also allows BBCW to determine how much it should charge for advertising, and if it is hitting its target audience. Information (IP addresses and information in other BBC cookies) that Omniture (Visual Sciences) collects is transferred to them in the United States. BBCW confirms that Omniture (Visual Sciences) satisfies the EU's data protection requirements.
This is a list of the main cookies set by the BBC website, and what each is used for:
hploc cookie
Used to store your user preferences for the homepage in order to give you area-specific News, TV, Radio and Weather.
BBC-UID cookie
A unique identifier given to each computer to allow log analysis to determine the number of unique users for various parts of bbc.co.uk. Data is only used in aggregate.
BGUID cookie
This cookie is being rolled out as a replacement to the BBC-UID cookie. It has a slightly extended purpose to the BBC-UID cookie: as well as being used in log analysis to determine the number of unique users for various parts of bbc.co.uk (using aggregate data), this BGUID cookie is also used as a key to storing preferences and personalision data for sites such as BBC iPlayer.
BBC-LAYOUT cookie
Used to store references to BBC Homepage customisations, for example added or moved modules.
BBCMediaselector cookie
Used to store your user preferences for Audio-Video content from bbc.co.uk - format (Real player or Windows Media player) and quality (narrowband or broadband).
mstouch cookie
Used if we have needed to reset your BBCMediaSelector cookie.
BBCPostcoder cookie
Used to store your user preferences for geographic specific content on bbc.co.uk - allows pages to present information for your local area, primarily on the homepage, but also in other areas like bbc.co.uk/arts.
BBCWEACITY cookie
Used to store your user preferences for home city - allows the weather site to present information for your local area.
SSO2-UID cookie
Used to allow you to be automatically signed in to a bbc.co.uk service which you have previously registered for.
BBC-H2-User cookie
Used for user authentication for the bbc.co.uk messageboard system.
rmRpDetectReal cookie
Used to store a preference to prevent 'You don't have Real player installed ...' alerts coming up if you really don't want to install it and don't want to be pestered with requests to do so.
*votename* cookie
Some voting systems on bbc.co.uk may set a cookie to discourage voters voting more than once. In each case the cookie's name will reflect the vote in question.
pulse cookie
Used to ensure that once you have taken a BBC survey, or said that you don't want to be surveyed, that you are not offered the same survey again.
bbcComSurvey
Used to ensure that once you have taken a BBC survey, or said that you don't want to be surveyed, that you are not offered the same survey again. This cookie is used when there are two concurrent surveys being run.
myway
Used to store your user preference for which colours to use (for example, high contrast colour scheme) on bbc.co.uk/accessibility.
BBCLiveStats
Used to capture the co-ordinates of clicks made on the BBC News pages. The cookie expires after 8 seconds and the information is used to inform editorial decisions about page layout and promotion.
BBCNewsCustomisation
Used to store user preferences for customisable elements, where available, within news.bbc.co.uk.
BBCMobilePref2
Is a unique identifier for mobile phone users of bbc.co.uk which is used to recognise revisiting users in order to offer them a more personalised user experience.
abtst_id
Used to anonymously test different design ideas for sites within the BBC (known as 'A-B testing'), with the 'id' indicating which part of the site is conducting the testing.
IDENTITY
The IDENTITY cookie is used to allow you to sign in to the BBC website. If you ticked 'Remember Me on this computer' this cookie will remain on your computer for up to 30 days or until you click 'sign out'. Until that time, you'll remain signed in to the BBC website. If you didn't tick 'Remember Me', this cookie will be removed when you close your browser session.
HTTPS-IDENTITY
This cookie provides extra security with your BBC iD accounts. If you view a BBC page using HTTPS, this cookie will be passed over that encrypted connection. As such this cookie provides the most security when identifying you as a user.
IDENTITY_SESSION
This cookie is used by BBC iD to identify you as a user between page loads. This allows BBC iD to remember certain settings, like which part of the BBC website you were using before you were asked to sign in or register. This cookie is destroyed each time you close your browser.
Below is a list of the main cookies that CBBC web pages set:
cbbc_anim
Set whether the user wants the Flash background playing or not
CBeebiesJourney
Record a users journey throughout the site to allow for quick links
cbeebies_snd
Opt in for audio navigation
bbcsr_users[x]
Where x is an integer to identify a specific user Used to store a users preferences for a switch news reader application
cbeebies_rd
Stops intro animation on the Razzledazzle site (/cbeebies/razzledazzle/) being shown more than once
cbeebies_pet_loyaltyengine
My Cbeebies (/cbeebies/mycbeebies/) - monitors points for CBeebies Pet point scoring system
cbbc_roly_splash
Stops intro animation being shown more than once, on the RolyMo site (/cbeebies/rolymo/)
cbbc_ar_sendtofriend
On the CBBC Adventure Rock (/cbbc/adventurerock/) site, once SSO signed-in users have downloaded the game, this allows them to fill in a form to send emails to their friends telling them about the game.
Last updated: 14th October 2010
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