December 7, 2021 The cookies we set and why we set them

This information is recommended to be read in conjunction with our Privacy Policy.

A “cookie” (also called web cookie, Internet cookie, browser cookie) is a small piece of data sent from a website and stored on the user’s computer by the user’s web browser while the user is browsing that website (more info on Wikipedia).

Almost all websites use cookies extensively.

The first time a user visits…

Some cookies are set the first time a user performs an action (for example, visiting our site the first time). Computers sometimes interpret “first time” in unexpected ways. For example, if you visit our site today in the Chrome web browser, and tomorrow in the Firefox web browser, your computer and our site will consider both of these visits to be the “first time” in the context of cookie setting.

Similarly, clearing all cookies (or, all abbywinters.com cookies) will cause your browser to think that it’s the first time you have visited any site (or, just our site).

The difference between first-party and third-party cookies

We draw a distinction between third-party cookies, and first-party cookies.

First-party cookies are set by the site for the site – that is, abbywinters.com sets a cookie for a user of abbywinters.com to make the site nicer to use for that user.

Third-party cookies are set by a different site. In our case, we allow sites like Google Analytics to set cookies for users on abbywinters.com. We let people opt-out of third-party cookies being set.

All first-party cookies we set for Customers last for one year, based on the preferences of the user (Guests get default values set).

Declining third-party cookies

Note, opting out of cookies only opts out of third-party cookies – first-party cookies are still set, as they are essential to accessing our website.

Guests are asked if they want to allow third party cookies when they first visit the site.

ABOVE: The location of the cookie decline / accept interaction.

If third-party Cookies are accepted initially but later the Guest user wants to decline them, easiest is to delete all cookies for abbywinters.com (varies by Browser, make a web search for “delete cookies Firefox” for example). On the next visit to abbywinters.com, you’ll be asked if you want to allow third-party cookies or not – select “Decline”.

Paying customers can opt-out of third party cookies in their preferences; Be logged in to abbywinters.com. In the user Control panel top right, select My Account, Preferences, General tab, Disallow third-party cookies.

First-party cookies we set

recently_visited

Applies to: Guests; Customers.

This cookie stores the 10 most-recently visited pages on abbywinters.com, to show on our page – this is sometime called “breadcrumbs”, so it’s easy to go back a few steps. We are phasing this feature out in our site redesign. We’ll likely retain this cookie as it’s useful for customer support reasons.

No user data is stored, just the most recently visited URL’s on the abbywinters.com site. If a user submits a customer support ticket, those URLs are listed in the ticket to allow us to support the user better.

This cookies is set the first time the user visits our site, and is deleted when all tabs for our website are closed.

ageverify

Applies to: Guests; Customers.

When they first visit our site, we ask users to confirm they are over the age of 18. If the user selects “Enter”, we set a value of “1” so the user is not asked this question again.

This cookie is set the first time a visitor arrives on any page of our site.

No user data is stored in this cookie.

ABOVE: What the age verify modal looks like.

cookie_accept

Applies to: Guests; Customers.

We set this cookie based on the user’s choice to accept or decline third-party cookies. These cookies only contain a value (“allow” or “deny”), no user data is stored.

If the user selects to accept cookies, we set cookie_accept to a value of “allow”, and we set third party cookies (that is, Google Analytics).

If the user selects to decline third-party cookies, we set cookie_accept to a value of “deny”, and do not set third-party cookies (that is, cookies from Google Analytics).

To change this setting, Guests can choose to delete this cookie from their browser, and upon visiting the site the next time, they will be prompted to make a selection. Customers can do the same thing, or simply when logged in, in the user Control panel top right, select My Account, Preferences, General tab, Disallow third-party cookies.

dl_quality

Applies to: Guests; Customers.

This cookie sets the user’s preference for default video download quality. No user data is stored in this cookie, just a simple identification of the preferred video quality, for example, “HD_MP4”.

Guests receive the default setting, and cannot alter this option.

This cookie is updated when the Customer changes their preference.

image_dl_quality

Applies to: Guests; Customers.

This cookies sets the user’s preference for the default image download quality.ย No user data is stored in this cookie, just a simple identification of the preferred video quality, for example, “XL”.

Guests receive the default setting, and cannot alter this option.

This cookie is updated when the Customers changes their preference.

tv_m, tv_time

Applies to: Guests; Customers.

These cookies are used to store a user’s preferences regarding Tagging videos, micro-videos we pop-up from time to time showing our models encouraging users to add meaningful tags to the site.

No user data is stored, only integers relating to the user’s preference for how often we display these videos to the user.

Guests receive the default setting, and cannot alter this option.

This cookie is updated when the Customers changes their preference.

video_dl

Applies to: Guests; Customers.

This cookie allows the user to choose if they prefer to download or stream videos, when clicking on a video download link. We provide excellent video streaming options, so this is rarely used, but some weirdos like it…

Guests receive the default setting, and cannot alter this option.

No user data is stored in this cookie, just the word “download” or “stream”.

This cookie is updated when the Customers changes their preference.

user

Applies to: Customers only.

This cookie stores the user’s session ID, so the user is not asked for their username and password on each page they visit on our site (that’d be super annoying!). When the user reloads the page or follows a link we re-check this cookie and re-authenticate user.

Contained in this cookie is the user’s username and encrypted password (more info on how we keep your data secure).

This cookie is first set when a Customer logs in.

Third party cookies set when visiting abbywinters.com

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic.ย The details of each cookie set are described on Google’s page for this. All data is anonymised.

Data gathered by google analytics is listed on Google’s page for this, under the heading “The GIF Request Parameters” towards the bottom of the page.

AddThis

AddThis is a social bookmarking service, that allows our customers to share pages on our site with others.

AddThis has their own Privacy Policy that covers more details on how data is collected and used.