Necessary Cookies

Necessary cookies enable core functionality. The website cannot function properly without these cookies, and can only be disabled by changing your browser preferences.

October CMS

October CMS is the software application that we use to create and manage our digital content, and is the underlying platform for our website.

october_session is a “session cookie” used by the October CMS system. It uniquely identifies a computer or device in order to provide a consistent browsing experience on a website, but does not contain any personal data and does not personally identify the user.

The digital format of Planet magazine (‘Planet Digital’) is exclusively available to individual subscribers via username and password and is provided by the October CMS platform. The user_auth cookie enables this access and is essential to provide this online service. It enables your computer to remember you are logged in, and also gives you the option of remembering your username and password.

CloudFlare

We use CloudFlare to secure our website by encrypting all communication between our website and your browser. (A secure connection is signified by the “https” prefix on our web address and the padlock next to it.) We also use CloudFlare to improve the performance of our website and to protect it against online threats.

The __cfduid third party cookie is used to identify individual computers or devices behind a shared IP address and apply security settings on a per-client basis. It does not contain any personal data and does not personally identify the user. Please refer to the CloudFlare website for more details: https://www.cloudflare.com/cookie-policy/

PayPal

We use PayPal on our shopping pages to process our on-line payments securely.

PayPal uses the PYPF third party cookie to shorten the time it takes its existing customers to log in to their PayPal account. Please refer to the PayPal website for more details: https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/ua/cookie-full

Mailchimp

We use Mailchimp on our mailing list sign-up page to process your request to join our mailing list.

Mailchimp uses third party cookies including OptanonAletBoxClosed, OptanonConsent, __zlcmid, _ga to provide this service. Please refer to the Mailchimp website for more details: https://mailchimp.com/legal/cookies/

Analytical Cookies

Analytical cookies help us to improve our website by collecting and reporting information on its usage. You can choose to opt out of analytical cookies.

Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics data to analyse how our website is used. This is vital for informing us which web-pages and online articles are popular with users and our readers thereby enabling us to improve our content, for giving an estimate of unique visitor numbers for online articles to funders such as the Welsh Books Council to justify continued support, to give us a sense of which areas of the world our users are based through aggregate data, and to provide potential advertising clients with an average estimate of page users. The data collected is aggregated data, and as such, no personally identifiable information is made available to ourselves via Google Analytics, nor is it sent to Google Analytics from the website. Google Analytics uses the following cookies:

__utma is used to distinguish users and sessions. The cookie is created when the ga.js javascript library executes and no existing __utma cookies exists. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics.

__utmt is used to throttle request rate.

__utmb is used to determine new sessions/visits. The cookie is created when the ga.js javascript library executes and no existing __utmb cookies exists. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics.

__utmc is no longer 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 stores the traffic source or campaign that explains how the user reached the site. The cookie is created when the ga.js javascript library executes and is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics.

__utmv is 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.

Social Media Cookies

Social media cookies allow us to display our social media feed on our website and allow us to offer you the ability to share certain pages from our website directly to your social media feeds. You can choose to opt out of social media cookies.

Twitter

Twitter uses several cookies including _twitter_sess, guest_id, ua, co, ct0, dnt, twid, personalization_id, external_referrer, remember_checked_on, ad_prefs and auth_token. Please refer to the Twitter website for more details: https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-cookies.

Facebook

Facebook uses several cookies including fr. Please refer to the Facebook website for more details: https://www.facebook.com/policies/cookies/

Embedded Content Cookies

Sometimes we use embedded content to illustrate our articles. You can choose to opt out of embedded content cookies.

Getty Images

Getty Images use the vis and fsbr_xxx cookies to provide embedded images. Please refer to the Getty Images website for more information: https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/company/privacy-policy

YouTube

Getty Images use the nextId, requests, CONSENT, GPS, PREF, VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE, YSC and remote_sid cookies to provide embedded videos. Please refer to your Google data and personalisation settings for more details: https://myaccount.google.com/data-and-personalization

How to opt out

You can opt out of analytical cookies and social media cookies via the cookie settings manager, accessed from the cog icon on the bottom left of out website.

While you can’t opt out of necessary cookies through the manager, you may refuse to accept any cookies by changing the setting for your browser on your computer, or in your mobile device’s settings. However, if you refuse to accept cookies that are essential to the operation of our website, our website will not be able to work properly. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you log on to our site. There are a number of ways that you can remove or block cookies at any time, for example by following the help file directions in your internet browser. Further information about cookies, and how to manage them can be found here: http://www.aboutcookies.org/DEFAULT.ASPX?page=2.

Third party websites and cookies

Please note that third party websites we link to from our website (including websites which advertise on our system) may also use cookies, over which we have no control. Please also note that we have no access to cookies on third party websites and third parties do not have access to the cookies that we use on our website. Any third parties linked to from our site who use cookies should have their own cookie and privacy policies. Please refer to their website for more information about this.