Lowering bills, cutting carbon

Cookies

Last updated: 12 September 2021

We rely on cookies to make our site work, understand where we need to make improvements, and in our marketing efforts. Some of these cookies involve tracking of users as they move through or between websites and the gathering of information in order to personalise content and advertising. Where such cookies involve the processing of your personal information, this is covered by our Privacy Policy.

What are cookies?

Cookies are small data files that are placed on your computer or mobile device when you visit a website. Cookies set by the website owner or service provider (in this case, Big Clean Switch) are called “first-party cookies”. Cookies set by parties other than the website owner are called “third-party cookies”. Third-party cookies enable third-party features or functionality to be provided on or through the website or service you are using (such as advertising, interactive content and analytics). These third-party cookies enable those third parties to recognise your computer as it visits different websites.

Why do we use cookies and other tracking technologies?

We use first-party and third-party cookies for several reasons.

Essential Cookies

Some cookies are required for technical reasons in order for our website to function properly. We refer to these as “essential” cookies.

Counting Cookies

Some cookies allow us to understand how our website is being used by visitors. These cookies, mostly placed by our analytics provider, Google, differentiate between different visitors and store aggregated data about them to enable us to identify trends or problems in how people use the site.

Advertising Cookies

As with most other businesses, we use advertising to reach out to people we think may be interested in our website. Cookies allow us to identify when people click through from an advertiser, as well as helping us to find people who may be interested in our services (such as someone who may previously have visited our site) when they use other people’s products and services. These advertising cookies then allow those websites and apps to display tailored content.

Cookies served through Big Clean Switch

The specific types of first and third-party cookies served through our Big Clean Switch and the purposes they perform are described in further detail below. It should be noted that third party providers may add, change or stop using cookies from time to time. We make every effort to keep track of these changes and to update this policy accordingly, but if you become aware that any of the information below is out of date, please email us at my.data@bigcleanswitch.org to let us know.

Cookie namePlaced byCategoryPurposeMaximum expiry
_big_clean_switch_sessionBig Clean SwitchEssentialThis cookie enables our website to ‘remember’ you across multiple pages of our website by allocating a unique ‘session ID’ to you. Our website won’t work without it.Session
civicCookieControlCivicEssentialThis cookie is required to apply your cookie selection preferences. It is provided by Civic, who developed our cookie control plug-in.3 months
__cfduidCrispEssentialThis is a technical cookie required by Cloudfare, the content delivery network (CDN) provider for Crisp, who power our chatbot. A CDN is a geographically distributed group of servers which work together to provide fast delivery of Internet content. The cookie ensures that visitors are recognised as legitimate browsers and not bots. If this cookie was not set, users would often not be able to load the chatbox as they could be flagged as a bot. It is not used for tracking purposes.30 days
crisp-client*CrispEssentialThese are cookies that are required so that our chatbot (provided by crisp.chat) works and is able to restore a visitor message history. Without those cookies, you would have a new chat session every time you switched to a new page, and you might receive the same messages multiple times.30 days
sbFacebookCountingUsed to store browser & device details2 years
SIDGoogleCountingUsed to identify when a user is signed into Google’s services.2 years
SAPISIDGoogleCountingUnique identifier for tracking purposes.2 years
_gaGoogleCountingSet by Google Analytics. They are used to calculate visitor, session and campaign data for our site analytics reports.2 years
_gidGoogleCountingSet by Google Analytics. They are used to calculate visitor, session and campaign data for our site analytics reports.24 hours
frFacebookAdvertisingUsed for targeting purposes to build a profile of the website visitor’s interests in order to show relevant and personalised Facebook advertising3 months
xsFacebookAdvertisingUsed to identify when a user is signed into Facebook’s services.3 months
c_userFacebookAdvertisingUsed to verify when you’re logged into Facebook so that Facebook can make it easier for you to access their products and show you relevant content.1 year
_fbpFacebookAdvertisingThis cookie enables us to track when adverts we run on Facebook result in someone taking an activity on our own website. It also allows Facebook to deliver you more targeted advertising, and for us to show you related content on Facebook after you have visited our site.3 months
_pk_uidTV SquaredAdvertisingAllows the TV Squared collector to identify individual users, in order to establish lag between response activities, and to confirm continuity of campaigns being responded to.2 years
_pk_id.{variable id} or _tq_id.{variable id}TV SquaredAdvertisingAids reporting of site visits and actions for analytical reporting to TV Squared.2 years
_pk_sesTV SquaredAdvertisingUsed to confirm an individual user in relation to an individual session, i.e. how long the user is on the website.30 minutes
__Secure-3PSIDGoogleAdvertisingUsed for targeting purposes to build a profile of the website visitor’s interests in order to show relevant and personalised Google advertising.2 years
__Secure-3PSIDCCGoogleAdvertisingTargeting cookie. Used by for targeting purposes to build a profile of the website visitor’s interests in order to show relevant and personalised Google advertising.2 years
SSIDGoogleAdvertisingFor targeting purposes to build a profile of the website visitor’s interests in order to show relevant and personalised Google advertising.6 months – 10 years
HSIDGoogleAdvertisingUsed to identify when a user is signed into Google’s services.1 year
SIDCCGoogleAdvertisingSecurity cookie to protect a user’s data from unauthorized access6 months
__Secure-3PAPISIDGoogleAdvertisingUsed for targeting purposes to build a profile of the website visitor’s interests in order to show relevant and personalised Google advertising2 years
APISIDGoogleAdvertisingUsed for targeting purposes to build a profile of the website visitor’s interests in order to show relevant and personalised Google advertising2 years
DVGoogleAdvertisingUsed for targeting purposes to build a profile of the website visitor’s interests in order to show relevant and personalised Google advertising2 years
NIDGoogleAdvertisingUsed for targeting purposes to build a profile of the website visitor’s interests in order to show relevant and personalised Google advertising2 years
ANIDGoogleAdvertisingUsed for targeting purposes to build a profile of the website visitor’s interests in order to show relevant and personalised Google advertising2 years
SEARCH_SAMESITEGoogleAdvertisingPrevents other websites from accessing information stored in particular Google cookies in order to mitigate the risk of information leakage and ‘cross-site request forgery’ (CSRF).6 months
__ar_v4GoogleAdvertisingThis cookie is used to track conversion rates for adverts run by us through Google search and other services.30 days
IDEGoogleAdvertisingServing and rendering ads, personalising ads (depending on your ad settings at g.co/adsettings), limiting the number of times an ad is shown to a user, muting ads you have chosen to stop seeing, and measuring the effectiveness of ads.2 years

Learning more

Further information about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set on your computer or mobile device and how to manage and delete them, visit www.allaboutcookies.org and www.youronlinechoices.eu.