Information We Collect
We only collect information about you if we have a reason to do so–for example, to provide our Services, to communicate with you, or to make our Services better.
We collect information in three ways: if and when you provide information to us, automatically through operating our Services, and from outside sources. Let’s go over the information that we collect.
Information You Provide to Us
It’s probably no surprise that we collect information that you provide to us. The amount and type of information depends on the context and how we use the information. Here are some examples:
- Basic Account Information: We ask for basic information from you in order to set up your account. For example, we require individuals who sign up for a WordPress.com account to provide an email address along with a username or name, depending on the service – and that’s it. You may provide us with more information – like your address and other information you want to share – but we don’t require that information to create a WordPress.com account.
- Public Profile Information: If you have an account with us, we collect the information that you provide for your public profile. For example, if you have a WordPress.com account, your username is part of that public profile, along with any other information you put into your public profile, such as a photo or an “About Me” description. Your public profile information is just that — public — so please keep that in mind when deciding what information you would like to include.
- Transaction and Billing Information: If you buy something from us –a subscription to a WordPress.com plan, a premium theme, a custom domain, or some fun Longreads swag, for example – or pay fees to a site owner (for example via Recurring Payments or Simple Payments), you will provide additional personal and payment information that is required to process the transaction and your payment, such as your name, credit card information, and contact information.
- Happy Tools Information: If you are a Happy Tools user, you will provide us with information to make use of the Service’s features. For example, you might enter timezone and location information, company information, and contact information.
- Ecommerce Site Information: If you use our ecommerce Services to sell products or services to others through your site (including Stores on WordPress.com, the WooCommerce Services extension, or other purchases on WooCommerce.com), you will have to create a WordPress.com account or connect an existing account and, for some of our ecommerce Services, provide your site URL. You may also provide us with information about your financial account to set up a payments integration, such as the email address for your Stripe or PayPal account or your bank account information.
- Content Information: Depending on the Services you use, you may also provide us with information about you in draft and published content (such as for your website or your Crowdsignal survey). For example, if you write a blog post that includes biographic information about you, we will have that information, and so will anyone with access to the Internet if you choose to publish the post publicly. This might be obvious to you…but it’s not to everyone!
- Credentials: Depending on the Services you use, you may provide us with credentials for your website (like SSH, FTP, and SFTP username and password). For example, Jetpack and VaultPress users may provide us with these credentials in order to use our one-click restore feature if there is a problem with their site, or to allow us to troubleshoot problems on their site more quickly.
- Communications with Us (Hi There!): You may also provide us information when you respond to surveys, communicate with our Happiness Engineers about a support question, post a question about your site in our public forums, or sign up for a newsletter like the one we send through Longreads. When you communicate with us via form, email, phone, WordPress.com comment, or otherwise, we store a copy of our communications (including any call recordings as permitted by applicable law).
Information We Collect Automatically
We also collect some information automatically:
- Log Information: Like most online service providers, we collect information that web browsers, mobile devices, and servers typically make available, such as the browser type, IP address, unique device identifiers, language preference, referring site, the date and time of access, operating system, and mobile network information. We collect log information when you use our Services–for example, when you create or make changes to your website on WordPress.com.
- Usage Information: We collect information about your usage of our Services. For example, we collect information about the actions that site administrators and users perform on a site using our WordPress.com or Jetpack services–in other words, who did what, when and to what thing on a site (e.g., [WordPress.com username] deleted “[title of post]” at [time/date]). As another example, our WooCommerce Usage Tracker tracks information like your email address, WooCommerce settings, PHP settings, and other features for your site, along with information about your online store, such as the aggregate number of orders and customers. We also collect information about what happens when you use our Services (e.g., page views, support document searches at en.support.wordpress.com, features enabled for your website, interactions with our Admin Bar and other parts of our Services) along with information about your device (e.g., screen size, name of cellular network, and mobile device manufacturer). We use this information to, for example, provide our Services to you, as well as get insights on how people use our Services, so we can make our Services better.
- Location Information: We may determine the approximate location of your device from your IP address. We collect and use this information to, for example, calculate how many people visit our Services from certain geographic regions. We may also collect information about your precise location via our mobile apps (when, for example, you post a photograph with location information) if you allow us to do so through your mobile device operating system’s permissions.
- Stored Information: We may access information stored on your mobile device via our mobile apps. We access this stored information through your device operating system’s permissions. For example, if you give us permission to access the photographs on your mobile device’s camera roll, our Services may access the photos stored on your device when you upload a really amazing photograph of the sunrise to your website.
- Interactions with Other Users’ Sites: We collect some information about your interactions with other users’ sites while you are logged in to your account with us, such as your “Likes” and the fact that you commented on a particular post, so that we can, for example, recommend posts we think may interest you. As another example, for Intense Debate users, we collect information about the comments you make while logged in to your account, and use that information to, for example, tally up statistics about your comments (check them out in your dashboard!) and provide the information about your comments in your Intense Debate public profile.
- Information from Cookies & Other Technologies: A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns. Pixel tags (also called web beacons) are small blocks of code placed on websites and emails. Automattic uses cookies and other technologies like pixel tags to help us identify and track visitors, usage, and access preferences for our Services, as well as track and understand email campaign effectiveness and to deliver targeted ads. For more information about our use of cookies and other technologies for tracking, including how you can control the use of cookies, please see our Cookie Policy.
Information We Collect from Other Sources
We may also get information about you from other sources. For example, if you create or log into your WordPress.com account through another service (like Google) or if you connect your website or account to a social media service (like Twitter) through our Publicize feature, we will receive information from that service (such as your username, basic profile information, and friends list) via the authorization procedures used by that service. The information we receive depends on which services you authorize and any options that are available.
We may also get information, such as a mailing address, from third party services about individuals who are not yet our users (…but we hope will be!), which we may use, for example, for marketing and advertising purposes like postcards and other mailers advertising our services.
How and Why We Use Information
Purposes for Using Information
We use information about you as mentioned above and for the purposes listed below:
- To provide our Services–for example, to set up and maintain your account, host your website, backup and restore your website, charge you for any of our paid Services, or provide essays and stories for your reading pleasure through Longreads;
- To further develop and improve our Services–for example, by adding new features that we think our users will enjoy or will help them to create and manage their websites more efficiently;
- To monitor and analyze trends and better understand how users interact with our Services, which helps us improve our Services and make them easier to use;
- To measure, gauge, and improve the effectiveness of our advertising, and better understand user retention and attrition — for example, we may analyze how many individuals purchased a paid plan after receiving a marketing message or the features used by those who continue to use our Services after a certain length of time;
- To monitor and prevent any problems with our Services, protect the security of our Services, detect and prevent fraudulent transactions and other illegal activities, fight spam, and protect the rights and property of Automattic and others, which may result in us declining a transaction or the use of our Services;
- To communicate with you, for example through an email, about offers and promotions offered by Automattic and others we think will be of interest to you, solicit your feedback, or keep you up to date on Automattic and our products (which you can unsubscribe from at any time); and
- To personalize your experience using our Services, provide content recommendations (for example, through our Reader Post Suggestions), target our marketing messages to groups of our users (for example, those who have a particular plan with us or have been our user for a certain length of time), and serve relevant advertisements.
Legal Bases for Collecting and Using Information
A note here for those in the European Union about our legal grounds for processing information about you under EU data protection laws, which is that our use of your information is based on the grounds that:
(1) The use is necessary in order to fulfill our commitments to you under the applicable terms of service or other agreements with you or is necessary to administer your account — for example, in order to enable access to our website on your device or charge you for a paid plan; or
(2) The use is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation; or
(3) The use is necessary in order to protect your vital interests or those of another person; or
(4) We have a legitimate interest in using your information — for example, to provide and update our Services; to improve our Services so that we can offer you an even better user experience; to safeguard our Services; to communicate with you; to measure, gauge, and improve the effectiveness of our advertising; and to understand our user retention and attrition; to monitor and prevent any problems with our Services; and to personalize your experience; or
(5) You have given us your consent — for example before we place certain cookies on your device and access and analyze them later on, as described in our Cookie Policy.
Sharing Information
How We Share Information
We do not sell our users’ private personal information.
We share information about you in the limited circumstances spelled out below and with appropriate safeguards on your privacy:
- Subsidiaries, Employees, and Independent Contractors: We may disclose information about you to our subsidiaries, our employees, and individuals who are our independent contractors that need to know the information in order to help us provide our Services or to process the information on our behalf. We require our subsidiaries, employees, and independent contractors to follow this Privacy Policy for personal information that we share with them.
- Third Party Vendors: We may share information about you with third party vendors who need to know information about you in order to provide their services to us, or to provide their services to you or your site. This group includes vendors that help us provide our Services to you (like payment providers that process your credit and debit card information, payment providers you use for your ecommerce operations, fraud prevention services that allow us to analyze fraudulent payment transactions, postal and email delivery services that help us stay in touch with you, customer chat and email support services that help us communicate with you, registrars, registries, and data escrow services that allow us to provide domain registration services, and your hosting provider if your site is not hosted by Automattic), those that assist us with our marketing efforts (e.g. by providing tools for identifying a specific marketing target group or improving our marketing campaigns), those that help us understand and enhance our Services (like analytics providers), and companies that make products available on our websites (such as the extensions on WooCommerce.com), who may need information about you in order to, for example, provide technical or other support services to you. We require vendors to agree to privacy commitments in order to share information with them. Other vendors are listed in our more specific policies (e.g. our Cookie Policy).
- Legal and Regulatory Requirements: We may disclose information about you in response to a subpoena, court order, or other governmental request. For more information on how we respond to requests for information about WordPress.com users, please see our Legal Guidelines. Additionally, if you have a domain registered with WordPress.com, we may share your information to comply with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers’ (ICANN) regulations, rules, or policies. For example, your information relating to your domain registration may be available in the WHOIS database, or we may be required to share your information with ICANN-approved Dispute Resolution Service Providers. Please see our Domain Registrations and Privacy support document for more details.
- To Protect Rights, Property, and Others: We may disclose information about you when we believe in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of Automattic, third parties, or the public at large. For example, if we have a good faith belief that there is an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury, we may disclose information related to the emergency without delay.
- Business Transfers: In connection with any merger, sale of company assets, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by another company, or in the unlikely event that Automattic goes out of business or enters bankruptcy, user information would likely be one of the assets that is transferred or acquired by a third party. If any of these events were to happen, this Privacy Policy would continue to apply to your information and the party receiving your information may continue to use your information, but only consistent with this Privacy Policy.
- With Your Consent: We may share and disclose information with your consent or at your direction. For example, we may share your information with third parties with which you authorize us to do so, such as the social media services that you connect to your site through our Publicize feature.
- Aggregated or De-Identified Information: We may share information that has been aggregated or reasonably de-identified, so that the information could not reasonably be used to identify you. For instance, we may publish aggregate statistics about the use of our Services and we may share a hashed version of your email address to facilitate customized ad campaigns on other platforms.
- Site Owners: If you have a WordPress.com account and interact with a site, your information may be shared with the administrators of the site. For example, if you leave a comment on a site that uses our Services (like a site created on WordPress.com or a site running Jetpack), your IP address and the email address associated with your WordPress.com account may be shared with the administrator(s) of the site where you left the comment. Or if you make a payment (such as via Recurring Payments) to a site, your public display name, user name, and email address may be shared with the administrator(s) of the site.
- Published Support Requests: And if you send us a request (for example, via a support email or one of our feedback mechanisms), we reserve the right to publish that request in order to help us clarify or respond to your request or to help us support other users.
Information Shared Publicly
Information that you choose to make public is–you guessed it–disclosed publicly.
That means, of course, that information like your public profile, posts, other content that you make public on your website, and your “Likes” and comments on other websites, are all available to others–and we hope you get a lot of views!
For example, the photo that you upload to your public profile, or a default image if you haven’t uploaded one, is your Globally Recognized Avatar, or Gravatar — get it? :). Your Gravatar, along with other public profile information, will display with the comments and “Likes” that you make on other users’ websites while logged in to your WordPress.com account. Your Gravatar + public profile information may also display with your comments, “Likes,” and other interactions on websites that use our Gravatar service, if the email address associated with your account with us is the same as the email address that you use on the other website.
We also provide a “Firehose” stream of public data (like posts and comments) from some sites that use our Services to provide that data to Firehose subscribers, who may view and analyze the content (all subject to our Terms of Service), but do not have rights to re-publish it, publicly.
Public information may also be indexed by search engines or used by third parties.
Please keep all of this in mind when deciding what you would like to share.
How Long We Keep Information
We generally discard information about you when we no longer need the information for the purposes for which we collect and use it — which are described in the section above on How and Why We Use Information — and we are not legally required to continue to keep it.
For example, we keep the web server logs that record information about a visitor to one of Automattic’s websites, such as the visitor’s IP address, browser type, and operating system, for approximately 30 days. We retain the logs for this period of time in order to, among other things, analyze traffic to Automattic’s websites and investigate issues if something goes wrong on one of our websites.
As another example, when you delete a post, page, or comment from your WordPress.com site, it stays in your Trash folder for thirty days just in case you change your mind and would like restore that content — because starting again from scratch is no fun, at all. After the thirty days are up, the deleted content may remain on our backups and caches until purged.
Security
While no online service is 100% secure, we work very hard to protect information about you against unauthorized access, use, alteration, or destruction, and take reasonable measures to do so, such as monitoring our Services for potential vulnerabilities and attacks.
To enhance the security of your account, we encourage you to enable our advanced security settings, like Two Step Authentication.
Choices
You have several choices available when it comes to information about you:
- Limit the Information that You Provide: If you have an account with us, you can choose not to provide the optional account information, profile information, and transaction and billing information. Please keep in mind that if you do not provide this information, certain features of our Services — for example, paid, premium themes–may not be accessible.
- Limit Access to Information on Your Mobile Device: Your mobile device operating system should provide you with the ability to discontinue our ability to collect stored information or location information via our mobile apps. If you do so, you may not be able to use certain features (like adding a location to a photograph, for example).
- Opt-Out of Marketing Communications: You may opt out of receiving promotional communications from us. Just follow the instructions in those communications or let us know. If you opt out of promotional communications, we may still send you other communications, like those about your account and legal notices.
- Set Your Browser to Reject Cookies: At this time, Automattic does not respond to “do not track” signals across all of our Services. However, you can usually choose to set your browser to remove or reject browser cookies before using Automattic’s websites, with the drawback that certain features of Automattic’s websites may not function properly without the aid of cookies.
- Close Your Account: While we’d be very sad to see you go, if you no longer want to use our Services 🙁 🙁 🙁 :(, you can close your account (for example, here, for WordPress.com accounts). Please keep in mind that we may continue to retain your information after closing your account, as described in How Long We Keep Information above — for example, when that information is reasonably needed to comply with (or demonstrate our compliance with) legal obligations such as law enforcement requests, or reasonably needed for our legitimate business interests.
Your Rights
If you are located in certain countries, including those that fall under the scope of the European General Data Protection Regulation (AKA the “GDPR”), data protection laws give you rights with respect to your personal data, subject to any exemptions provided by the law, including the rights to:
- Request access to your personal data;
- Request correction or deletion of your personal data;
- Object to our use and processing of your personal data;
- Request that we limit our use and processing of your personal data; and
- Request portability of your personal data.
You can usually access, correct, or delete your personal data using your account settings and tools that we offer, but if you aren’t able to do that, or you would like to contact us about one of the other rights, scroll down to How to Reach Us to, well, find out how to reach us.
EU individuals also have the right to make a complaint to a government supervisory authority.
Controllers and Responsible Companies
Automattic’s Services are worldwide. Different Automattic companies are the controller (or co-controller) of personal information, which means that they are the company responsible for processing that information, based on the particular service and the location of the individual using our Services.
Depending on the Services you use, more than one company may be the controller of your personal data. Generally, the “controller” is the Automattic company that entered into the contract with you under the Terms of Service for the the product or service you use. In addition, Automattic Inc., our US-based company, is the controller for some of the processing activities across all of our Services worldwide.
The chart below explains the controllers for processing your personal information. We use the term “Designated Countries” to refer to Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, and all countries located in the European continent.
| If you reside outside of the Designated Countries (for services other than those offered at WooCommerce.com): | Automattic Inc. 60 29th Street #343 San Francisco, CA 94110 |
| If you reside in the Designated Countries (for services other than those offered at WooCommerce.com): | Aut O’Mattic A8C Ireland Ltd. Business Centre, No.1 Lower Mayor Street International Financial Services Centre Dublin 1, IrelandAutomattic Inc. is also the controller for some of the processing activities related to Services provided by Aut O’Mattic A8C Ireland Ltd. |
| If you are using our Services offered at WooCommerce.com: | Bubblestorm Management (Pty) Ltd (WooCommerce.com) Unit A206, The Old Biscuit Mill (TOBM) 373 – 375 Albert Road, Woodstock Cape Town, South AfricaAutomattic Inc. is also the controller for some of the processing activities related to Services provided by Bubblestorm Management (Pty) Ltd (WooCommerce.com). |
How to Reach Us
If you have a question about this Privacy Policy, or you would like to contact us about any of the rights mentioned in the Your Rights section above, please contact us.
Other Things You Should Know (Keep Reading!)
Transferring Information
Because Automattic’s Services are offered worldwide, the information about you that we process when you use the Services in the EU may be used, stored, and/or accessed by individuals operating outside the European Economic Area (EEA) who work for us, other members of our group of companies, or third party data processors. This is required for the purposes listed in the How and Why We Use Information section above. When providing information about you to entities outside the EEA, we will take appropriate measures to ensure that the recipient protects your personal information adequately in accordance with this Privacy Policy as required by applicable law. These measures include:
- In the case of US based entities, entering into European Commission approved standard contractual arrangements with them, or ensuring they have signed up to the EU-US Privacy Shield; or
- In the case of entities based in other countries outside the EEA, entering into European Commission approved standard contractual arrangements with them.
You can ask us for more information about the steps we take to protect your personal information when transferring it from the EU.
Ads and Analytics Services Provided by Others
Ads appearing on any of our Services may be delivered by advertising networks. Other parties may also provide analytics services via our Services. These ad networks and analytics providers may set tracking technologies (like cookies) to collect information about your use of our Services and across other websites and online services. These technologies allow these third parties to recognize your device to compile information about you or others who use your device. This information allows us and other companies to, among other things, analyze and track usage, determine the popularity of certain content, and deliver advertisements that may be more targeted to your interests. Please note this Privacy Policy only covers the collection of information by Automattic and does not cover the collection of information by any third party advertisers or analytics providers.
Third Party Software and Services
If you’d like to use WooCommerce extensions that enable services provided by third parties, third party plugins, embeds, or other third party software or services, please keep in mind that when you interact with them you may provide information about yourself (or your site visitors) to those third parties. For example, some third party services may request or require access to your (yours, your visitors’, or customers’) data, for example, via a pixel or cookie. Please note that if you use the third party service or grant access, your data will handled in accordance with the third party’s privacy policy and practices. We don’t own or control these third parties, and they have their own rules about collection, use, and sharing of information, which you should review before using the software or services.
Visitors to Our Users’ Websites
We also process information about visitors to our users’ websites, on behalf of our users and in accordance with our user agreements. Please note that our processing of that information on behalf of our users for their websites isn’t covered by this Privacy Policy. We encourage our users to post a privacy policy that accurately describes their practices on data collection, use, and sharing of personal information. If you’d like, you can also read more about the data we collect on behalf of our users in our Privacy Notice.
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.
What are cookies?
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.
How we use cookies
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 WordPress.com 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.
Where we place cookies
We set cookies in a number of different locations across our services. These include:
- On our websites (including automattic.com, wordpress.com, vip.wordpress.com, jetpack.com, gravatar.com, intensedebate.com, vaultpress.com, and akismet.com).
- In the administrative dashboards of our websites, such as Calypso and wp-admin.
- On sites we host for our users.
- On sites that use our plugins (e.g. Jetpack).
- In the emails we send.
Types of Cookie
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 |
| Strictly Necessary | These cookies are essential for websites on our services to perform their basic functions. These include those required to allow registered users to authenticate and perform account related functions, as well as to save the contents of virtual “carts” on sites that have an ecommerce functionality. |
| Functionality | These cookies are used to store preferences set by users such as account name, language, and location. |
| Security | We use these cookies to help identify and prevent potential security risks. |
| Analytics and Performance | Performance cookies collect information on how users interact with our websites, including what 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 used to display relevant advertising to visitors who use our services or visit websites we host or provide, as well as to understand and report on the efficacy of ads served on our websites. They track details such as the number of unique visitors, the number of times particular ads have been displayed, and the number of clicks the ads have received. They are also used to build user profiles, including showing you ads based on products you’ve viewed or acts you have taken on our (and other) websites. These are set by Automattic and trusted third party networks, and are generally persistent in nature. |
| Third Party / Embedded Content | Sites hosted on WordPress.com make use of different third party applications and services to enhance the experience of website visitors. These include social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter (through the use of sharing buttons), or embedded content from Youtube and Vimeo. As a result, cookies may be set by these third parties, and used by them to track your online activity. We have no direct control over the information that is collected by these cookies. |
User Sites
In addition to the cookies set on our own sites, we utilize cookies for our Site Statsfeature. 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.
Examples
Below are examples of the cookies set by Automattic, with explanations of their purpose. Some of these cookies are set across our whole network, whereas some are specific to individual services (e.g. WordPress.com, Longreads, etc). Please note that this is not an exhaustive list, but rather aims to be representative. Information about cookies that may be set by third parties, such as our ads partners, is below. Additionally, we occasionally set referrer cookies on Jetpack connected sites, using WooCommerce.
In addition, people and companies that use our services to publish or host their own sites may place additional cookies. We provide more information on these cookies below.
Advertising
| Cookie | Purpose |
| ads | Tracks if a visitor has clicked an ad before. |
| lr_nw | Counts and tracks pageviews on Longreads.com. Used to determine whether or not to show our Membership popup message. |
| wordpress_eli | Reduces the display of ads for repeat visitors. |
Please also see the section below on third party advertisements that you may see on our sites or sites that use our services.
Analytics and Performance
| Cookie | Purpose |
| __pdvt | Used in log of Crowdsignal survey data to aid in debugging customer problems |
| ab | Used for “AB testing” of new features. |
| nux_flow_name | Identifies which user signup flow was shown to the user. |
| tk_ni / tk_ai / tk_qs | Gathers information for our own, first party analytics tool about how our services are used. A collection of internal metrics for user activity, used to improve user experience. |
| tk_*r | Referral cookies used to analyse referrer behavior for Jetpack connected sites using WooCommerce. |
| wp-affiliate-tracker | Remembers the ID of the affiliate that referred the current user to WordPress.com |
| utma / utmb / utmc / utmt / utmz / ga / gat / gid | Google Analytics. Gathers information that helps us understand how visitors interact with our websites, which allow us to create a better experience for our visitors. Our users may also implement Google Analytics on their own websites. |
Functionality
| Cookie | Purpose |
| __stripe_sid / __stripe_mid | For processing payment and to aid in fraud detection. |
| _longreads_prod_new | Authentication for Longreads.com Member accounts. Only active when logged in, on *.longreads.com domains. |
| akm_mobile | Stores whether a user has chosen to view the mobile version of a website. |
| botdlang | Used to track the language a user has selected to view popular blogs in. |
| landingpage_currency | Defines the currency displayed in WordPress.com landing pages. |
| pd_dashboard | Records last used folder in Crowdsignal dashboard so it can be reopened upon user’s next visit. |
| PD_USER_AUTH | Login cookie used to identify Crowdsignal user. |
| wordpress_logged_in* | Checks whether or not the current visitor is a logged in WordPress.com user. |
| wp-settings-{user_id} | Persists a user’s wp-admin configuration. |
| wp_sharing_{id} | Tracks whether or not a user has already performed an action. |
Security
| Cookie | Purpose |
| csrftoken | Python/Ajax security cookie used on accounts.longreads.com. |
Strictly Necessary
| Cookie | Purpose |
| country_code | Used in order to determine whether or not the cookie banner should be shown. Set immediately on page load and retained for 6 hours to remember the visitor’s country. |
| sensitive_pixel_option | Remembers the state of visitor acceptance to the cookie banner. Only set when the visitor clicks Accept. |
| twostep_auth | Set when the user is logged in using two factor authentication. |
| wordpress_test_cookie | Checks if cookies are enabled to provide appropriate user experience. |
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 (e.g. longreads.com), 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.
Below is a representative list of our advertising program partners, along with information on the cookies that that each partner sets. The partners we work with change from time to time, and this is not an exhaustive list. Your choices to control cookies related to our ads program are described below.
Below is a representative list of the cookies that may be set by our ads partners in connection with ads that appear in emails.
| Cookie | Purpose |
| pi-userid | Used to personalize email-based ads. |
| eid_ | Used in email-based ads to track if a visitor has clicked an ad and report to advertisers how their ads performed. |
Visitors to Sites with Jetpack installed
Below are examples of the cookies set for visitors to sites with the Jetpack plugin installed. For more details on the cookies set for administrators, please see https://jetpack.com/support/cookies/.
Jetpack Comments
| Cookie Name | Purpose |
| comment_author_{HASH} | Remembers the value entered into the comment form‘s name field. Specific to the site from which it is set. This cookie mirrors one set by the core WordPress software for commenting purposes. |
| comment_author_email_{HASH} | Remembers the value entered into the comment form‘s email field. Specific to the site from which it is set. This cookie mirrors one set by the core WordPress software for commenting purposes. |
| comment_author_url_{HASH} | Remembers the value entered into the comment form‘s URL field. Specific to the site from which it is set. This cookie mirrors one set by the core WordPress software for commenting purposes |
Mobile Theme
| Cookie Name | Purpose |
| akm_mobile | Remembers whether or not a user wishes to view the mobile versionof a site. |
Subscriptions
| Cookie Name | Purpose |
| jetpack_comments_subscribe_{HASH} | Remembers the state of the post and comment subscription checkboxes. |
| jetpack_blog_subscribe_{HASH} | Remembers the state of the post and comment subscription checkboxes. |
EU Cookie Law Banner
| Cookie Name | Purpose |
| eucookielaw | Remembers the state of visitor acceptance to the EU Cookie Law banner. |
Please note that this section is not intended to be exhaustive, but rather aims to be representative, and that our users may set additional cookies (such as Google Analytics), depending on the features they have chosen to enable or the plugins they have installed.
Controlling Cookies
Visitors may wish to restrict the use of cookies or completely prevent them from being set. Most browsers provide for ways to control cookie behavior such as the length of time they are stored – either through built-in functionality or by utilizing third party plugins. If you disable cookies, please be aware that some of the features of our service may not function correctly.
To find out more on how to manage and delete cookies, visit aboutcookies.org. For more details on your choices regarding use of your web browsing activity for interest-based advertising you may visit the following sites:
On a mobile device, you may also be to adjust your settings to limit ad tracking.
You can opt out of Google Analytics by installing Google’s opt-out browser add-on.
Our Internal Analytics Tool
In order to better understand how our services are used, we monitor certain user activities that take place within our products, including page views and clicks on any links used when managing a site via our dashboards.
We call each one of these actions an “event.” Analytics events are attached to your WordPress.com account and are handled via a first party system that Automattic owns and maintains. In general, we record the following data for each event: IP address, WordPress.com user ID and username, WordPress.com-connected site ID (for sites not hosted on WordPress.com), user agent, referring URL, timestamp of event, browser language, and country code.
We use this information to improve our products, make our marketing to you more relevant, personalize your experience, and for the other purposes described in our Privacy Policy.
You may opt out of our analytics program through your user settings. By doing so, you won’t share information with our analytics tool about events or actions that happen after the opt-out, while logged in to your WordPress.com account. Note that opting out does not disable the functionality of the actions we track – for example, if you publish a post, we will still have record of that (don’t worry!), but for an event or action after you opt out, we will not have other data associated with that action or event in the analytics tool.
For our Simplenote Users: We use our first party analytics tool in Simplenote to help us better understand how Simplenote is used and improve the app for our users. You may opt-out through your privacy settings in the app. By doing so, you won’t share information with our analytics tool about events or actions that happen after the opt-out. One more thing–For Simplenote users who log onto Simplenote using their WordPress.com login, if you’d like to opt-out of our analytics tool on Simplenote, you’ll also need to opt out on the Simplenote app–not on your WP.COM Account Privacy Settings.
Consent for Advertising Cookies on Our Sites
You may see a “cookie banner” on our websites and dashboards. If you are visiting one of our users’ sites from the EU, then we do not set, or allow our ad partners to set, cookies that are used to show you targeted ads before you click to accept. When you consent in this manner, we and our advertising partners may set advertising cookies on the site you are visiting and on other of our websites, dashboards, and services. We’ll display the banner to you periodically, just in case you change your mind.
Consent and Choices for Advertisements on Our Users’ Sites Through Our Ads Program
You may see a “cookie banner” 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 on our network in order to show you personalized ads. We’ll display the banner to you periodically, just in case you change your mind.
* Please note this consent feature was implemented on May 22, 2018.