This page describes the cookies wirelessemporium.com sets, the ones set on our behalf by services that sit in front of the site, and the separate cookie that Amazon sets in your browser after you follow a link out of here. It names what is actually in use rather than listing categories a template supplied.
What a cookie is
A cookie is a small text file that a website asks your browser to store and send back on later requests. It lets a site recognize that two page views came from the same browser. Some cookies vanish when you close the browser, others carry an expiry date and survive until it passes or until you delete them. Related storage in your browser, such as local storage, does a similar job without being sent with every request, and this site uses a small amount of it to hold analytics events that have not yet been delivered.
Cookies this site sets itself
Analytics
We run our own analytics on our own infrastructure instead of handing visitor behavior to an advertising network. Two first party cookies support it.
- ddc_sid holds a session identifier and expires after roughly thirty minutes of inactivity. It groups the pages you open in one visit so a single reading session is not counted as several.
- dd_vid holds a visitor identifier and can persist for up to two years. It distinguishes a returning reader from a new one.
Neither contains your name, your email address or anything you typed. What the analytics records, and how long records are kept, is set out in the privacy policy.
Platform cookies
The site runs on WordPress with WooCommerce installed. That software sets session and cart cookies of its own even though nothing is for sale here and no order can be placed. It also sets cookies for anyone who logs in to administer the site, which does not include ordinary visitors. A page caching layer may set a cookie so that a returning browser is served a consistent version of a page.
Cookies set by services in front of the site
Cloudflare delivers this site and filters automated abuse before requests reach our server. It sets its own cookies for that purpose, typically a short lived bot management cookie and, if you are challenged, a clearance cookie that records that the challenge was passed. These are security and delivery cookies rather than advertising cookies, and blocking them can mean the site refuses to load for you.
Advertising cookies
There are none. At the time of writing this site runs no advertising network, no retargeting pixel and no social media tracking script, so nothing here builds a cross site advertising profile of you. If that changes, this page will be updated before it changes.
The Amazon affiliate cookie
This is the one worth understanding, and it is not our cookie.
When you press a buy button on a page such as one in our wireless headphone section, the click passes through a link on this domain, which is how the outbound click is counted, and then sends you to Amazon. On arrival, Amazon sets a cookie in your browser on its own domain that records which affiliate referred you. Under Amazon’s published program terms that referral window is generally twenty four hours from the click, extended for an item you place in the cart during that window. If a qualifying purchase happens inside the window, we may be credited a commission at no extra cost to you.
Some limits are worth stating plainly. We cannot read that cookie, because it belongs to Amazon’s domain and not to ours. We cannot see your basket, your order, your name or your payment details. What reaches us is aggregate commission reporting with no identity attached to it. Clicking a newer affiliate link from any other site will normally overwrite the reference, and clearing your cookies removes it entirely. Once you are on Amazon, Amazon’s own cookie notice and privacy policy govern what happens, not this one. The commercial side of that arrangement is on the affiliate disclosure page.
Controlling cookies
Every current browser lets you view stored cookies, delete them individually or in bulk, block third party cookies, and clear everything on exit. The controls sit in the privacy or site settings section of the browser, and a private or incognito window discards cookies when you close it. You can do all of this without asking us, and you do not need an account here to do it.
What changes if you block them: our analytics stops distinguishing your return visits, which we can live with; the security layer may challenge you more often or refuse the request; and an affiliate referral will not be recorded, which costs us the commission and costs you nothing. Reading the site does not require accepting anything, because none of these cookies gate the content.
Changes and questions
This policy is updated when the cookies in use change. The version published here is the current one, and we hold no mailing list through which to announce a revision. Questions go through the contact form. The wider disclaimers that apply to the whole site are in the terms and conditions.