How we use cookies

We are keenly aware of the trust you place in us, and our responsibility to protect your privacy. As part of this responsibility, we let you know what information we collect using cookies when you use our websites, why we collect it and how we use it to improve your experience.

About Cookies

Cookies are small text files that websites save locally to your computer, which allow sites to store and use information during your visit. They can improve your experience when using a website by:

Remembering preferences, so you don’t have to keep re-entering your choices when you visit again
Measuring how you use a site, so that changes can be made to ensure it meets your needs

None of our cookies used for our sites can be used to identify you personally. They are just used to help make the site better for you. To learn more about cookies and how to manage them, visit http://aboutcookies.org/ or https://www.allaboutcookies.org/. Read on to find out more about how we use cookies.

How Nominet Use Cookies

The primary Nominet site, nominet.uk and associated microsites (e.g. theukdomain.uk and ourhomeonline.wales and nominetcyber.com and cyglass.com) use cookies in several places, and we’ve listed them below with more details about why we use them and how long they will last.

You can set your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent, however some website features or services may not function properly without cookies.

Measuring our website usage – Google Analytics

We only use first-party Google Analytics cookies to track anonymous usage statistics and do not collect any personal information that can be used to identify you. This helps us analyse data about webpage usage and improve our website in order to tailor it to customer needs.

Google Analytics stores information about what pages you visit, how long you are on the site, how you got here and what you click on. We do not allow Google to use or share our analytics data.

Google Analytics sets the following first-party cookies:

_Cookie	Content	Expires
_utma	Random Number	2 years from now
_utmb	Random Number	1 day from now
_utmc_	Random Number	When you quit your browser
_utmz_	Random Number	6 months from now

Improving our website layout – HotJar

In addition to Google Analytics we also use HotJar to track anonymous usage in the form of heatmaps and user journeys, as before we do not collect any personal information that can be used to identify you. This helps us identify where we can improve our website layout in order to help users find the information they’re looking for.

HotJar sets the following first-party cookies:

Name	Description	Duration	Data type
_hjClosedSurveyInvites	Hotjar cookie that is set once a visitor interacts with an External Link Survey invitation modal. It is used to ensure that the same invite does not reappear if it has already been shown.	365 days	Boolean true/false
_hjDonePolls	Hotjar cookie that is set once a visitor completes a survey using the On-site Survey widget. It is used to ensure that the same survey does not reappear if it has already been filled in.	365 days	Boolean true/false
_hjMinimizedPolls	Hotjar cookie that is set once a visitor minimizes an On-site Survey widget. It is used to ensure that the widget stays minimized when the visitor navigates through your site.	365 days	Boolean true/false
_hjShownFeedbackMessage	Hotjar cookie that is set when a visitor minimizes or completes Incoming Feedback. This is done so that the Incoming Feedback will load as minimized immediately if the visitor navigates to another page where it is set to show.	365 days	Boolean true/false
_hjid	Hotjar cookie that is set when the customer first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the Hotjar User ID, unique to that site on the browser. This ensures that behavior in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID.	365 days	UUID
_hjRecordingLastActivity	This should be found in Session storage (as opposed to cookies). This gets updated when a visitor recording starts and when data is sent through the WebSocket (the visitor performs an action that Hotjar records).	Session	Numerical Value (Timestamp)
_hjTLDTest	When the Hotjar script executes we try to determine the most generic cookie path we should use, instead of the page hostname. This is done so that cookies can be shared across subdomains (where applicable). To determine this, we try to store the _hjTLDTest cookie for different URL substring alternatives until it fails. After this check, the cookie is removed.	Session	Boolean true/false
_hjUserAttributesHash	User Attributes sent through the Hotjar Identify API are cached for the duration of the session in order to know when an attribute has changed and needs to be updated.	Session	Hash
_hjCachedUserAttributes	This cookie stores User Attributes which are sent through the Hotjar Identify API, whenever the user is not in the sample. These attributes will only be saved if the user interacts with a Hotjar Feedback tool.	Session	JSON
_hjLocalStorageTest	This cookie is used to check if the Hotjar Tracking Script can use local storage. If it can, a value of 1 is set in this cookie. The data stored in_hjLocalStorageTest has no expiration time, but it is deleted almost immediately after it is created.	Under 100ms	Boolean true/false
_hjIncludedInPageviewSample	This cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether that visitor is included in the data sampling defined by your site’s pageview limit.	30 minutes	Boolean true/false
_hjIncludedInSessionSample	This cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether that visitor is included in the data sampling defined by your site’s daily session limit.	30 minutes	Boolean true/false
_hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress	This cookie is used to detect the first pageview session of a user. This is a True/False flag set by the cookie.	30 Minutes	Boolean true/false
_hjFirstSeen	This is set to identify a new user’s first session. It stores a true/false value, indicating whether this was the first time Hotjar saw this user. It is used by Recording filters to identify new user sessions.	Session	Boolean true/false
hjViewportId	This stores information about the user viewport such as size and dimensions.	Session	UUID
_hjRecordingEnabled	This is added when a Recording starts and is read when the recording module is initialized to see if the user is already in a recording in a particular session.	Session	Boolean true/false

Running our sites – session cookies

Google Analytics does not collect any personal information, as identified in their privacy policy. Google also offers a browser plugin that allows users to opt out of their analytics.

Running our sites – session cookies

To run our sites we use “session cookies”. These cookies are used to remember selections and preferences that you’ve already made or information that you’ve already given. Certain parts of our sites will not work if cookies cannot be set (for example if you set your browser to refuse all cookies).

Primary Site	Cookie	Content	Expires
nominet.uk	_JSESSIONID	Random number	When you quit your browser

Current concerns with cookies

There are many legitimate uses for cookies to enhance convenience and efficiency. However, some uses of cookies can lead to privacy concerns. These concerns typically emerge when a cookie holds personal information identifying you (e.g. a person’s name, e-mail address, billing information, address or similar), or is used across multiple sites to track users and internet usage.

nominet.uk does not use any of its first-party cookies to hold any personal information or track users across multiple sites. On some of our sites we use third party social sharing tools that set third-party cookies, which allow you to share content via social networks.

Other concerns some users have are around privacy, and in particular those third party cookies which are generated by advertisers which track browsing activity across different sites. For all cookies, there are steps that you can take to manage your user preferences on how these are set.

How do I manage cookies or turn them off?

You can manage the cookies stored on your computer, or turn them off completely, through your browser settings. Be aware that this may affect your browsing experience or even prevent you from using certain services such as those with a secure login, which require cookies to be set in order to work.

All modern browsers will let you change your cookie settings to give you broad control over whether cookies can be set or not. For more information, visit the help section for the browser you use.

Here are a few of the most popular:

Cookie settings in Internet Explorer
Cookie settings in Firefox
Cookie settings in Chrome
Cookie settings in Safari

If you are concerned about third party cookies generated by advertisers, you can visit the Your Online Choices website which allows you to turn these off.

The Network Advertising Initiative also provides opt-out controls for targeted advertising by NAI member ad networks.

Please bear in mind that there are many more networks listed on the Network Advertising Initiative than those that we use at Nominet.

Further information on cookies

For more information about how to manage cookies and their uses visit About Cookies.

For information regarding the updated law on cookies visit the ICO.

Nominet’s response to Covid-19

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