Cookie policy

Everything you need to know

  1. 1.

    Purpose

    The purpose of this policy is to explain to users of this website Defense.com™ how cookies are used on the site, the options for controlling the use of cookies and what cookies are used and for what purpose.

  1. 2.

    Scope

    When we provide services via our website this sometimes involves placing small amounts of information on the device that you are using to be able to fully access our website. This policy applies to the cookies used on this website Defense.com™ and to enable a service to recognise your device to prevent you from having to provide the same information during one task, or when you revisit our website.

  1. 3.

    Definitions

    The following terms are used throughout this policy and are defined as follows:

    • “Cookie” – cookies are small files that are placed on your computer by the websites that you visit. They are used in order to make websites work, to provide features, or to work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owner of the site such as pages visited, number of visitors etc. Some cookies also enable the display of relevant advertising when you move from site to site.

    • “We/us/our” – refers to Defense.com™ Cyber Ltd, the owner of this website registered at Unit H, Gateway 1000, Whittle Way, Stevenage, Herts, SG1 2FP. UK with company registration number 14729524.

    • “Personal data” – is any information which can directly or indirectly identify a living person.

    • “First Party Cookie” – this is a cookie that is controlled by us.

    • “Third Party Cookie” – this is a cookie provided by a third party e.g., Google Analytics for which we have no control over

    • “Session” – if a cookie does not contain an expiration date, it is considered a session cookie. Session cookies are stored in memory and never written to disk. When the browser closes, the cookie is permanently lost from this point on.

    • “Persistent” – these cookies stay in one of your browser’s subfolders until you delete them manually or your browser deletes them based on the duration period contained within the persistent cookie’s file.

  1. 4.

    Cookie types

    We use the following types of cookies on our website:

    • Necessary cookies – these cookies are necessary for the operation of our site. They don’t access or store any personal data. Our website cannot function without these cookies, so they are, by default switched on.

      You can manage cookies in your browser (see browser settings in section 10) Your choices will include the ability to switch off cookies completely and removing cookies by deleting them when you leave our site. If you do switch cookies off, you may find problems with the operation of our website.

    • Analytics cookies – these cookies allow us to analyze website use such as which pages are most popular and how visitors move around the site. The information collected does not directly identify any individuals.

      You can control whether you want to accept the use of these cookies via the cookie consent options on the website.

    • Functionality cookies – these cookies allow us to recognize you when you return to our website. They enable us to personalise content for you and remember preferences you may have set on your last visit.

      You can control whether you want to accept the use of these cookies via the cookie consent options on the website.

    • Performance/statistics cookies – these cookies collect information about how you use our website (e.g., which Internet browser you use, how often you visit our website, which pages you open, or how long you stay on our website). These cookies do not store any information that enables visitors to be personally identified. The information collected with the help of these cookies is aggregated, and thus anonymous.

    • Marketing cookies – these cookies allow us to provide personalized and relevant services or advertising to our visitors, and to assess the effectiveness of our digital marketing activities. We also use these cookies to enable third party ‘plug-ins’ like social media sharing and like buttons. They also enable us to play video content.

    You can control whether you want to accept the use of these cookies via the cookie consent options on the website.

  2. Necessary cookies

    Cookie Name Type Duration Purpose
    __cfduid PERSISTENT 30 days Cookie associated with sites using CloudFlare, used to speed up page load times. According to CloudFlare it is used to override any security restrictions based on the IP address the visitor is coming from. It does not contain any user identification information.
    _bulletproof_session SESSION Expire once you close your browser Session cookies allow defense.com to remember users when they move between web pages. These cookies tell the server what pages to show the user, so the user doesn’t have to remember where they left off or start navigating the site all over again. Therefore, without session cookies, websites have no memory.
    _ga PERSISTENT 365 days This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics – which is a significant update to Google’s more commonly used analytics service. This cookie is used to distinguish unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier. It is included in each page request in a site and used to calculate visit session and campaign data for the site’s analytics reports.
    OptanonAlertBoxClosed PERSISTENT The cookie has a one-year lifespan and contains no personal information. This cookie is set by websites using certain versions of the cookie law compliance solution from OneTrust. It is set after visitors have seen a cookie information notice and, in some cases, only when they actively close the notice down. It enables the website not to show the message more than once to a user.
    OptanonConsent PERSISTENT The cookie has a normal lifespan of one year, so that returning visitors to the site will have their preferences remembered. It contains no information that can identify the site visitor. This cookie is set by the cookie compliance solution from OneTrust. It stores information about the categories of cookies the site uses and whether visitors have given or withdrawn consent for the use of each category. Th enables site owners to prevent cookies in each category from being set in the user’s browser when consent is not given.
    wc_client PERSISTENT 180 days This cookie is associated to What Converts which is a service that allows us to measure call centre interaction and identify the source of phone calls so we can understand the effectiveness of our marketing efforts. This cookie specifically stores defense.com numbers that are being swapped out for call diagnostics purposes.
    wc_client_current SESSION Expire once you close your browser This cookie is associated to What Converts which is a service that allows us to measure call centre interaction and identify the source of phone calls so we can understand the effectiveness of our marketing efforts. This cookie specifically stores defense.com numbers that are being swapped out for call diagnostics purposes.
    wc_swap PERSISTENT Expire once you close your browser This cookie is associated to What Converts which is a service that allows us to measure call centre interaction and identify the source of phone calls so we can understand the effectiveness of our marketing efforts. This cookie specifically stores defense.com numbers that are being swapped out for call diagnostics purposes.
    wc_visitor PERSISTENT 730 days This cookie is associated to What Converts which is a service that allows us to measure call centre interaction and identify the source of phone calls so we can understand the effectiveness of our marketing efforts. This cookie specifically stores defense.com numbers that are being swapped out for call diagnostics purposes.

  3. Functional cookies

    Cookie Name Type Duration Purpose
    _gd######## SESSION Expire once you close your browser This cookie contains no identifying information and is used for diagnostic purposes by Impact Radius, a service we use to track signup commissions for our affiliate program. We have categorized it under Functionality because it is necessary for the operation of our affiliate program.
    bcookie PERSISTENT 365 days This domain is owned by LinkedIn, the business networking platform. It typically acts as a third-party host where website owners have placed one of its content sharing buttons in their pages, although its content and services can be embedded in other ways. Although such buttons add functionality to the website they are on, cookies are set regardless of whether or not the visitor has an active Linkedin profile or agreed to their terms and conditions. For this reason, it is classified as a primarily tracking/targeting domain.
    VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE PERSISTENT 180 days This cookie is used as a unique identifier to track viewing of videos
    intercom-id-dy577dhn PERSISTENT 365 days Anonymous visitor identifier cookie. As people visit your site, they get this cookie.
    intercom-session-dy577dhn PERSISTENT 365 days Identifier for each unique browser session. The user can access their conversations and have data communicated on logged out pages for 1 week, as long as the session isn’t intentionally terminated with `Intercom(’shutdown’); `, which usually happens on logout.
    _clck PERSISTENT 365 days Persists the Clarity User ID and preferences, unique to that site, on the browser. This ensures that behaviour in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID.
    AWSALB PERSISTENT 7 days Registers which server-cluster is serving the visitor. This is used in context with load balancing, in order to optimize user experience.
    AWSALBCORS PERSISTENT 7 days AWS Application Load Balancer Cookie: Load Balancing Cookie: Used to map the session to the instance. Same value as AWSALB.

  4. Analytics cookies

    Cookie Name Type Duration Purpose
    _ga PERSISTENT 365 days This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics – which is a significant update to Google’s more commonly used analytics service. This cookie is used to distinguish unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier. It is included in each page request in a site and used to calculate visitor, session, and campaign data for the site’s analytics reports.
    _gat_UA- PERSISTENT Expire once you close your browser. This is a pattern type cookie set by Google Analytics, where the pattern element on the name contains the unique identity number of the account or website it relates to. It appears to be a variation of the _gat cookie which is used to limit the amount of data recorded by Google on high traffic volume websites.
    _gclxxxx PERSISTENT 90 days -This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics, and it is used to throttle the request rate – limiting the collection of data on high traffic sites.
    _gid PERSISTENT 1 day This cookie is used for Google Analytics to store and update a unique value for each page visited.

  5. Marketing Cookies

    Cookie Name Type Duration Purpose
    _fbp PERSISTENT 90 days Used by Facebook to deliver a series of advertisement products such as real time bidding from third party advertisers.
    _gat_gtag_xxxx PERSISTENT Expire once you close your browser. Google Analytics
    _rdt_uuid PERSISTENT 90 days This cookie is set by Reddit and is used for remarketing on reddit.com
    _uetsid PERSISTENT 1 day This cookie is used by Bing to determine what ads should be shown that may be relevant to the end user perusing the site.
    AnalyticsSyncHistory PERSISTENT 30 days This domain is owned by LinkedIn, the business networking platform. It typically acts as a third-party host where website owners have placed one of its content sharing buttons in their pages, although its content and services can be embedded in other ways. Although such buttons add functionality to the website they are on, cookies are set regardless of whether or not the visitor has an active Linkedin profile or agreed to their terms and conditions. For this reason, it is classified as a primarily tracking/targeting domain.
    bscookie PERSISTENT 365 days This domain is owned by LinkedIn, the business networking platform. It typically acts as a third-party host where website owners have placed one of its content sharing buttons in their pages, although its content and services can be embedded in other ways. Although such buttons add functionality to the website they are on, cookies are set regardless of whether or not the visitor has an active Linkedin profile or agreed to their terms and conditions. For this reason, it is classified as a primarily tracking/targeting domain.
    CONSENT PERSISTENT 365 days YouTube is a Google owned platform for hosting and sharing videos. YouTube collects user data through videos embedded in websites, which is aggregated with profile data from other Google services in order to display targeted advertising to web visitors across a broad range of their own and other websites.
    fr PERSISTENT 90 days cookie is used to deliver, measure, and improve the relevancy of ads
    GPS PERSISTENT Expire once you close your browser. Detecting a unique ID on mobile devices to enable tracking based on geographic GPS location.
    IDE PERSISTENT 390 days Used for targeting purposes to build a profile of the website visitor’s interests in order to show relevant & personalised advertising
    lang SESSION Expire once you close your browser. This domain is owned by LinkedIn, the business networking platform. It typically acts as a third-party host where website owners have placed one of its content sharing buttons in their pages, although its content and services can be embedded in other ways. Although such buttons add functionality to the website they are on, cookies are set regardless of whether or not the visitor has an active Linkedin profile or agreed to their terms and conditions. For this reason, it is classified as a primarily tracking/targeting domain.
    li_gc PERSISTENT 6 months This domain is owned by LinkedIn, the business networking platform. It typically acts as a third-party host where website owners have placed one of its content sharing buttons in their pages, although its content and services can be embedded in other ways. Although such buttons add functionality to the website they are on, cookies are set regardless of whether or not the visitor has an active Linkedin profile or agreed to their terms and conditions. For this reason, it is classified as a primarily tracking/targeting domain.
    lidc PERSISTENT 1 day This domain is owned by LinkedIn, the business networking platform. It typically acts as a third-party host where website owners have placed one of its content sharing buttons in their pages, although its content and services can be embedded in other ways. Although such buttons add functionality to the website they are on, cookies are set regardless of whether or not the visitor has an active Linkedin profile or agreed to their terms and conditions. For this reason, it is classified as a primarily tracking/targeting domain.
    lissc PERSISTENT 365 days Used for routing from LinkedIn Share buttons & advertising services.
    MUID PERSISTENT 365 days This domain is owned by Mircosoft – it is the site for the search engine Bing.
    reddaid PERSISTENT 730 days Saves the information about log-on Reddit user for the purpose of the advertisement recommendation and updating the content, the content of the cookie is confirmed within the conditions of the Reddit use.
    SRM_B PERSISTENT 389 days This domain is owned by Mircosoft – it is the site for the search engine Bing.
    test_cookie PERSISTENT Expire once you close your browser. Used by Google to check if your browser supports cookies.
    UserMatchHistory PERSISTENT 30 days This domain is owned by LinkedIn, the business networking platform. It typically acts as a third-party host where website owners have placed one of its content sharing buttons in their pages, although its content and services can be embedded in other ways. Although such buttons add functionality to the website they are on, cookies are set regardless of whether or not the visitor has an active Linkedin profile or agreed to their terms and conditions. For this reason, it is classified as a primarily tracking/targeting domain.
    YSC SESSION Expire once you close your browser. YouTube is a Google owned platform for hosting and sharing videos. YouTube collects user data through videos embedded in websites, which is aggregated with profile data from other Google services in order to display targeted advertising to web visitors across a broad range of their own and other websites.
    ANONCHK PERSISTENT Expire once you close your browser. This cookie is used by Microsoft for storing the session ID for a user. This cookie ensures that clicks from advertisement on the Bing search engine are verified and it is used for reporting purposes and for personalization.

  6. Consent Mode

    Cookie Name Type Duration Purpose
    Ad_storage Google Retained only by Google Controls advertising cookies usage.
    Analytics_storage Google Retained only by Google Controls analytics cookies usage
    Ad_user_data Google Retained only by Google Is used to determine whether the user gives consent for google advertisement purposes
    Ad_personalization Google Retained only by Google Controls whether data can be used for ads personalisation

    Further details can be found on Google link: https://support.google.com/tagmanager/answer/10718549?hl=en

  7. 5.

    COOKIE MANAGEMENT

    Website Control

    When you access our website, you will receive a notification informing you that our website uses cookies along with an option of whether to browse using cookies along with a link to our Privacy Policy.

    You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. By default, all cookies, except necessary cookies, are disabled. By accepting the cookies, you consent to the processing of data about them by Defense.com for the purposes set out above.

    You can choose not to use cookies by not accepting the option and still access our website without enabling the cookies. However, in a few cases, some of our website features may not function as a result.

    5.

    Using your browser to control cookies

    As well as setting cookie preferences using the cookie settings options when you visit the website, you can also control cookie settings in your browser. How to control cookies for some of the most common browsers are detailed below:

  8. 6.

    Managing analytics cookies

    Anonymous Tracking

    You can opt out of anonymous tracking from third party analytics cookies by clicking on the links of our service providers here:

    Google Analytics: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

  9. 7.

    Further information

    If you would like any further information about the use of cookies on this website, please contact us at [email protected]. It is important that you read this privacy notice together with any other, more specific, privacy notices we may provide when we are collecting or processing personal data about you, so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your personal data.

    Please also see our privacy notice here.

  10. 8.

    Changes to this policy

    We reserve the right to make changes to this policy from time to time and the latest version of the policy will always be displayed on our website. You should check this policy from time to time to see any updates. This policy was last updated on 21 March 2024.

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