Cookie Policy

POLITICO operates a strict privacy policy. We are committed to being transparent about the technologies we use, and we’ve outlined below how we use cookies when you visit our site www.politico.eu.

What is a cookie?

A cookie is a small snippet of text that a website asks your browser to store. All cookies have expiration dates in them that determine how long they stay in your browser. Cookies can be removed in two ways: automatically, when they expire, or when you manually delete them. We’ve included more details below to help you understand what kinds of cookies we use.

Does POLITICO use cookies?

Yes, with the primary purpose to make our website work more effectively.

What kinds of cookies does POLITICO use and why?

We use different kinds of cookies for various reasons:

• Session cookies – these are temporary cookies that expire (and are automatically erased) whenever you close your browser. We use session cookies to grant access to content and things you have to log in to do.
• Persistent cookies – these usually have an expiration date far into the future and thus stay in your browser until they expire, or until you manually delete them. We use persistent cookies for functionalities like remembering login details, which makes it possible for registered users to return to the site without having to log in. We also use persistent cookies to better understand usage patterns so we can improve the site for our customers. This information is anonymised – when we look at the data, in other words, we look at patterns, but we do not see individuals’ personally identified information (PII).

What other cookies might you encounter on POLITICO?

There are also limited third-party cookies on the site. These cookies could be session or persistent and are set by entities other than POLITICO. To ensure compliance with our policies, we restrict the use of third-party cookies to trusted partners of POLITICO. For example, we currently allow:

• Social sharing – This allows you to share our articles through various social sharing networks like Facebook or Twitter
• Polling module – This cookie is dropped when someone votes
• Audience measurement and validation – We use services such as Omniture and Google Analytics to understand how many people come and what is popular which helps us improve the website. No personally identifiable information (PII) is stored and site usage is always looked at on an aggregate (and anonymous) level.
• Other functionality – we use Doubleclick (Google) for our advertising platform. Those teams set cookies in order to control frequency and target advertising to the right section or geographic region.
• POLITICO may also use cookies, web beacons and similar technologies, and/or a third-party ad serving software, to collect non-personally identifiable information about users of our site and about activity that occurs within our site, and we may use this information to, among other things, serve targeted advertisements on our site. The information collected allows us to analyze how users use the site and to track user interests, trends and patterns. We also may use third-party advertising companies to target and serve some of the advertisements that appear on our site, and these companies likewise may use their own cookies, web beacons and similar technologies to collect non-personally identifiable information from users of our site. The information collected by these companies does not identify you personally and does not include your name, address, email address or telephone number. These companies may use that information, sometimes in conjunction with similar non-personally identifiable information gathered from other websites, to deliver advertisements on this site, and possibly on other websites (if the third-party advertising company operates an advertising network), tailored to match the perceived interests of consumers. The collection and use of information by these companies is governed by the relevant third party’s privacy policy and is not covered by our privacy policy.

How can I delete or disable cookies?

If you want to delete or disable cookies, see: www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies

Will the site work if I disable cookies?

You can browse POLITICO with cookies disabled, though some interactions may not work. For example, ticking the “Stay logged in” box at login will not actually keep you logged in to the site unless you have enabled cookies.

Why does the message explaining cookies keep appearing?

If you close the banner and it reappears the next time you visit us, you most likely have cookies disabled. We use a persistent cookie to remember that you closed the banner, but this only works when cookies on our site are enabled.