What is a cookie?
A cookie is a small piece of data that may be stored on your computer or mobile device. It allows a website to “remember” your actions or preferences over a length of time.
Further information on cookies can be found at http://ec.europa.eu/ipg/basics/legal/cookies/index_en.htm
How are they used on AIMS Software Ltd websites
AIMS Software Ltd websites use Google Analytics to assist in providing relevant information in an easily accessible format.
What is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is a simple, easy-to-use tool that helps owners of websites to measure how users interact with page content. As a user navigates between web pages, Google Analytics provides website owners JavaScript tags (libraries) to record information about the page a user has seen, for example the URL of the page. The Google Analytics JavaScript libraries use HTTP Cookies to “remember” what a user has done on previous pages / interactions with the website.
Google Analytics Cookies used on AIMS Software Ltd sites:
Google Analytics supports three JavaScript libraries (tags) for measuring website usage:
gtag.js and analytics.js – cookie usage
The analytics.js JavaScript library is part of Universal Analytics and uses first-party cookies to:
- Distinguish unique users
- Throttle the request rate
When using the recommended JavaScript snippet, gtag.js and analytics.js set cookies on the highest level domain they can. For example, if your website address is blog.example.co.uk, analytics.js will set the cookie domain to .example.co.uk. Setting cookies on the highest level domain possible allows users to be tracked across subdomains without any extra configuration.
gtag.js and analytics.js set the following cookies:
| Cookie Name | ExpirationTime | Description |
| _ga | 2 years | Used to distinguish users. |
| _gid | 24 hours | Used to distinguish users. |
| _gat | 1 minute | Used to throttle request rate. If Google Analytics is deployed via Google Tag Manager, this cookie will be named _dc_gtm_<‘property-id’>. |
| AMP_TOKEN | 30 seconds to 1 year | Contains a token that can be used to retrieve a Client ID from AMP Client ID service. Other possible values indicate opt-out, inflight request or an error retrieving a Client ID from AMP Client ID service. |
| _gac_ | 90 days | Contains campaign related information for the user. If you have linked your Google Analytics and AdWords accounts, AdWords website conversion tags will read this cookie unless you opt-out. Learn more. |
ga.js – cookie usage
The ga.js JavaScript library uses first-party cookies to:
- Determine which domain to measure
- Distinguish unique users
- Throttle the request rate
- Remember the number and time of previous visits
- Remember traffic source information
- Determine the start and end of a session
- Remember the value of visitor-level custom variables
By default, this library sets cookies on the domain specified in the document.host browser property and sets the cookie path to the root level (/).
This library sets the following cookies:
| Cookie Name | Default Expiration Time | Description |
| __utma | 2 years from set/update | Used to distinguish users and sessions. The cookie is created when the javascript library executes and no existing __utma cookies exists. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics. |
| __utmt | 10 minutes | Used to throttle request rate. |
| __utmb | 30 mins from set/update | Used to determine new sessions/visits. The cookie is created when the javascript library executes and no existing __utmb cookies exists. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics. |
| __utmc | End of browser session | Not used in ga.js. Set for interoperability with urchin.js. Historically, this cookie operated in conjunction with the __utmb cookie to determine whether the user was in a new session/visit. |
| __utmz | 6 months from set/update | Stores the traffic source or campaign that explains how the user reached your site. The cookie is created when the javascript library executes and is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics. |
| __utmv | 2 years from set/update | Used to store visitor-level custom variable data. This cookie is created when a developer uses the _setCustomVar method with a visitor level custom variable. This cookie was also used for the deprecated _setVar method. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics. |
Managing Cookies
Within your browser you can choose whether you wish to accept cookies or not. Different browsers make different controls available to you. Generally, your browser will offer you the choice to accept, refuse or delete cookies at all times, or those from providers that website owners use (“third party cookies”), or those from specific websites.