What are cookies?
Cookies are small files which are stored on a user’s computer. They are designed to hold a modest amount of data specific to a particular client and website and can be accessed either by the web server or the client computer. This allows the server to deliver a page tailored to a particular user, or the page itself can contain some script which is aware of the data in the cookie and so is able to carry information from one visit to the website (or related site) to the next.
How Do They Work?
When you visit a site that uses cookies for the first time, a cookie is downloaded onto your PC. The next time you visit that site, your PC checks to see if it has a cookie that is relevant (that is, one containing the site name) and sends the information contained in that cookie back to the site.
The site then ’knows’ that you have been there before, and in some cases, tailors what pops up on screen to take account of that fact. For instance, it can be helpful to vary content according to whether this is your first ever visit to a site – or your 71st.
Please note that as of date, JEM does not use pop-ups or serve you any advertising. So, for the privacy conscious the cookies in the system are not used.
What cookies are used on this site?
We use cookies on the site to track visitors to our web site. The cookies used on this site do not collect or store any personal information.
The __utma Cookie – This cookie is what’s called a “persistent” cookie, as in, it never expires. Technically, it does expire, in the year 2038. But for the sake of explanation, let’s pretend it never expires. This cookie keeps track of the number of times a visitor has been to the site pertaining to the cookie, when their first visit was, and when their last visit occurred. Google Analytics uses the information from this cookie to calculate things like Days and Visits to purchase.
The __utmb and __utmc Cookies – The utmB and utmC cookies are ‘brothers’, working together to calculate how long a visit takes. __utmb takes a timestamp of the exact moment in time when a visitor enters a site, while the __utmc cookie takes a timestamp of the exact moment in time when a visitor leaves a site. __utmb expires at the end of the session while __utmc waits 30 minutes, then expires. __utmc has no way of knowing when a user closes their browser or leaves a website, so it waits 30 minutes for another pageview to happen, and if it doesn’t, it expires.
The __utmz Cookie – The __utmz keeps track of where the visitor came from, what search engine was used, what link was clicked, what keyword was used and where they were in the world when you accessed a website. It expires in 15,768,000 seconds – or, in 6 months. This cookie is how Google Analytics knows to whom and to what source / medium / keyword to assign the credit for a Goal Conversion or an Ecommerce Transaction.