List of Cookies, Purpose, and Storage Periods
Below is a list of cookies on the PLOS website, information about the cookie provider, type of cookie, its purpose, and its storage period.
First Party
| Cookie | Provider Information | Type | Storage Period | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| JSESSIONID | PLOS, USA | Strictly necessary | Session | Manages a user's authentication and session |
| plos-device-detected | PLOS, USA | Strictly necessary | 2 Hours | Manages display of desktop and mobile interfaces |
| CASTGC | Google LLC, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043 USA | |||
| Privacy Policy | Strictly necessary | Session | Ticket-granting cookie to support authentication and single sign-on. | |
| CSRF-TOKEN | PLOS, USA | Strictly necessary | Session | Cross Site Request Forgery Token for site security. |
| flanders_session | PLOS, USA | Strictly necessary | Session | Reduces database calls by remembering data about the user as they click between pages on the PLOS website. |
| plosDataLinkSurveyHush | PLOS, USA | Strictly Necessary | 24 Hours | Manages the number of times users are asked to opt-in to a survey. |
Third-Party
| Cookie | Provider Information | Type | Storage Period | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IDE | Google Ads (Google LLC), 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043 USA Privacy Policy | Marketing | 2 Years | Used by Google DoubleClick to register and report the website user's actions after viewing or clicking one of the advertiser's ads and present targeted ads. |
| NID | Google Ads (Google LLC), 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043 USA Privacy Policy | Marketing | 6 Months | Registers a unique ID that identifies a returning user's device. Used for targeted ads. |
| 1P_JAR | Google Ads (Google LLC), 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043 USA Privacy Policy | Marketing | 30 Days | Remembers preferences. |
| gid | Google Ads (Google LLC), 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043 USA Privacy Policy | Performance and Analytics | 2 Years | Collects information about how visitors use our website. Used to compile reports and improve the website. |
| ga | Google Ads (Google LLC), 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043 USA Privacy Policy | Performance and Analytics | 2 Years | Collects information about how visitors use our website. Used to compile reports and improve the website. |
| gads | Google Ads (Google LLC), 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043 USA Privacy Policy | Marketing | 1 Year | Collects information about how visitors use our website. Used to compile reports and improve the website. |
| GCLB | Google Cloud (Google LLC), 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043 USA Privacy Policy | Strictly Necessary | Session | Maintains continuity of session when IP addresses may change. |
| dc_gtm | Google Analytics (Google LLC), 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043 USA Privacy Policy | Performance and Analytics | 1 Minute | Collects information about how visitors use our website. Used to compile reports and improve the website. |
| gat_master | Google Analytics (Google LLC), 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043 USA Privacy Policy | Performance and Analytics | 1 Minute | Collects information about how visitors use our website. |
| wordpress_test_cookie | WordPress (Automattic, Inc.), 60 29th Street #343, San Francisco, CA 94110 USA Privacy Policy | Strictly Necessary | Session | Tests whether WordPress can place cookies. Does not identify the user. |
| gat_journalsMaster | Google Analytics (Google LLC), 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043 USA Privacy Policy | Performance and Analytics | 1 Minute | Collects information about how visitors use our website. |
| _ceir, is_returning | Crazy Egg, 16220 Ridgeview Ln La Mirada, CA 90638, USA Privacy Policy | Performance and Analytics | 1 Year | Tracks whether a visitor has visited the site before. |
| _CEFT | Crazy Egg, 16220 Ridgeview Ln La Mirada, CA 90638, USA Privacy Policy | Performance and Analytics | 1 Year | Stores page variants assigned to visitors for A/B performance testing. |
| _cer.s | Crazy Egg, 16220 Ridgeview Ln La Mirada, CA 90638, USA Privacy Policy | Performance and Analytics | Session | Tracks a recording visitor session unique ID, host, and start time. |
| _cer.v | Crazy Egg, 16220 Ridgeview Ln La Mirada, CA 90638, USA Privacy Policy | Performance and Analytics | Up to 31 Days | Tracks whether a visitor has visited the site before. |
| _ce.s | Crazy Egg, 16220 Ridgeview Ln La Mirada, CA 90638, USA Privacy Policy | Performance and Analytics | 1 Year | Tracks a recording visitor session unique ID, host, and start time. |
| _ce.cch | Crazy Egg, 16220 Ridgeview Ln La Mirada, CA 90638, USA Privacy Policy | Performance and Analytics | 1 Second | Used to check if cookies can be added. |
| _ce.gtld | Crazy Egg, 16220 Ridgeview Ln La Mirada, CA 90638, USA Privacy Policy | Performance and Analytics | 1 Second | Used to identify the top-level domain. |
| ce_need_secure_cookie | Crazy Egg, 16220 Ridgeview Ln La Mirada, CA 90638, USA Privacy Policy | Performance and Analytics | 1 Second | Used to determine cookie security parameters. |
| ce_successful_csp_check | Crazy Egg, 16220 Ridgeview Ln La Mirada, CA 90638, USA Privacy Policy | Performance and Analytics | 24 Hours | Determines if the page has a Content Security Policy rule that would prevent tracking. |
| __hs_opt_out | HubSpot, Inc. Two Canal Park, Cambridge, MA 02141 USA [email protected] | Necessary | 6 month | This cookie is used by the opt-in privacy policy to remember not to ask the visitor to accept cookies again. |
| __hs_do_not_track | HubSpot, Inc. Two Canal Park, Cambridge, MA 02141 USA [email protected] | Necessary | 6 month | This cookie can be set to prevent the tracking code from sending any information to HubSpot. |
| __hs_initial_opt_in | HubSpot, Inc. Two Canal Park, Cambridge, MA 02141 USA [email protected] | Necessary | 7 days | This cookie is used to prevent the banner from always displaying when visitors are browsing in strict mode. |
| __hs_cookie_cat_pref | HubSpot, Inc. Two Canal Park, Cambridge, MA 02141 USA [email protected] | Necessary | 6 months | This cookie is used to record the categories a visitor consented to. |
| __hs_gpc_banner_dismiss | HubSpot, Inc. Two Canal Park, Cambridge, MA 02141 USA [email protected] | Necessary | 180 days | This cookie is used when the Global Privacy Control banner is dismissed. |
| __hs_notify_banner_dismiss | HubSpot, Inc. Two Canal Park, Cambridge, MA 02141 USA [email protected] | Necessary | 180 days | This cookie is used when the website uses a Notify consent banner type. |
| hs_ab_test | HubSpot, Inc. Two Canal Park, Cambridge, MA 02141 USA [email protected] | Necessary | End of the session | This cookie is used to consistently serve visitors the same version of an A/B test page they've seen before. |
| _key | HubSpot, Inc. Two Canal Park, Cambridge, MA 02141 USA [email protected] | Necessary | 14 days | When visiting a password-protected page, this cookie is set so future visits to the page from the same browser do not require login again. |
| __hsmem | HubSpot, Inc. Two Canal Park, Cambridge, MA 02141 USA[email protected] | Necessary | 7 days | This cookie is set when visitors log in to a HubSpot-hosted site. It contains encrypted data that identifies the membership user when they are currently logged in. |
| hs-membership-csrf | HubSpot, Inc. Two Canal Park, Cambridge, MA 02141 USA [email protected] | Necessary | End of the session | This cookie is used to ensure that content membership logins cannot be forged. |
| __cfruid | ||||
| HubSpot, Inc. Two Canal Park, Cambridge, MA 02141 USA [email protected] |
Cloudflare, Inc. 101 Townsend St. San Francisco, CA 94107 [email protected]
| Necessay | End of the session | This cookie is set by HubSpot's CDN provider because of their rate limiting policies. Learn more about Cloudflare cookies. | | __cfuvid |
HubSpot, Inc. Two Canal Park, Cambridge, MA 02141 USA [email protected]
Cloudflare, Inc. 101 Townsend St. San Francisco, CA 94107 [email protected]
| Necessay | End of the session | This cookie is set by HubSpot's CDN provider because of their rate limiting policies. Learn more about Cloudflare cookies. | | __cf_bm |
HubSpot, Inc. Two Canal Park, Cambridge, MA 02141 USA [email protected]
Cloudflare, Inc. 101 Townsend St. San Francisco, CA 94107 [email protected]
| Necessary | 30 minutes | This cookie is set by HubSpot's CDN provider and is a necessary cookie for bot protection. Learn more about Cloudflare cookies. | | __hstc | HubSpot, Inc. Two Canal Park, Cambridge, MA 02141 USA [email protected] | Performance and analytics | 6 months | The main cookie for tracking visitors. | | hubspotutk | HubSpot, Inc. Two Canal Park, Cambridge, MA 02141 USA [email protected] | Performance and analytics | 6 months | This cookie keeps track of a visitor's identity. It is passed to HubSpot on form submission and used when deduplicating contacts. | | __hssc | HubSpot, Inc. Two Canal Park, Cambridge, MA 02141 USA [email protected] | Performance and analytics | 6 months | This cookie keeps track of sessions. | | __hssrc | HubSpot, Inc. Two Canal Park, Cambridge, MA 02141 USA [email protected] | Performance and analytics | End of the session | Whenever HubSpot changes the session cookie, this cookie is also set to determine if the visitor has restarted their browser |