Understanding Key Terms: Cookies, Device, IP Address, and More

Last Updated: July 15, 2022

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Cookies and Similar Technologies

Cookies

A cookie is a small text file containing a string of characters this is placed on your browser or device when you visit a website. When you visit the website again, the cookie allows that site to recognize your browser. Cookies may store user preferences and other information. Cookies may involve the transmission of information from us to you and from you directly to us, to another party on our behalf, or to another party in accordance with its privacy policy. For example, cookies can store your session information for easy sign-in to a website or your language preferences or may allow sites to record your browsing activities – like what pages and content you’ve looked at, when you visited, and whether you clicked on an ad. The site or service that places a particular cookie has permission to read the contents of that cookie each time it communicates with your browser. Some cookies are set by the site you are visiting, and others are set by that site’s service partners.

Cookies may be placed in your browser by third-party advertising companies to help deliver the ads you see online. These “third-party cookies” may be used to “remember” parts of your online activities in order to deliver ads tailored to your interests. For example, if you read an article online about running, a cookie may be used to note your interest in running. As you continue to surf the web, you may see coupons to save money on running shoes.

Other Similar Technologies

Other technologies are used for similar purposes as a cookie on other platforms where cookies are not available or applicable, such as the Advertising ID available on Android mobile devices and the Identifiers for Advertiser (“IDFA’) on iOS devices. Most modern mobile devices (iOS, Android, and Windows 10 and above) provide mobile advertising identifiers. These are randomly-generated numbers that are associated with your device that often come with options to reset the identifier and opt-out of advertising across apps (“Cross-App Advertising”). They are included to provide advertisers a method to identify your devices without using a permanent device identifier, like your phone’s serial number. Learn more about how Sojern uses cookies on Sojern.com in our Online Tracking Technologies and Advertising Policy.

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Device

A device is a computer that can be used to access our website or services. For example, a device could be a desktop, tablet or smartphone.

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HTTP Referrer

An HTTP Referrer is information transmitted to a destination webpage by a web browser, typically when you click a link to that webpage. The HTTP Referrer contains the URL of the last webpage the browser visited.

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IP Address

Every device connected to the Internet is assigned a number known as an Internet protocol (IP) address. These numbers are usually assigned in geographic blocks and are typically controlled by your Internet Service Provider (ISP), your company, or your university. An IP address can often be used to identify the location from which a device is connecting to the Internet. Please note that third parties have mapped the assignments of IP addresses by ISPs with specificity to postal code and exact city for broadband IP address and are also often mapped to college campuses, specific businesses, hotels, airports or conference centers. Mobile IP address often can only be mapped to a specific carrier’s gateway. However, most of the Wi-Fi routers in the world have been mapped by third parties to precise latitude and longitude and many Wi-Fi routers correspond to home addresses. IP address can be used to combat fraud and compliance with geographical legal restrictions and can be used to target advertising. When Sojern stores an IP address, we store it in truncated or encrypted form.

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Local Storage

Local storage enables websites to store and retrieve data in a browser on a device. When used in “local storage” mode, it enables data to be stored across sessions (for example, so that the data are retrievable even after the browser has been closed and reopened). One technology that facilitates web storage is HTML 5. Other technologies include local shared objects, sometimes known as “Flash Cookies”. For more information, please see our Online Tracking Technologies and Advertising Policy.

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Log Data

Like most websites, our servers automatically record the page requests made when you visit our websites. These “server logs” or “log data” typically include your web request, IP address, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify your browser.

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Non-Personally Identifiable Information

This is information that on its own does not permit direct association with any specific individual. For example, we consider the following to be non-personally identifiable information: your zip code, approximate location (e.g. region, city, zip), your browser type, cookie IDs, non-unique device identifiers, websites you have visited, and advertisements viewed or clicked. We also consider aggregated, de-identified and/or anonymized data to be non-personally identifiable information, including “hashed emails”.The process of hashing takes regular or “identifiable” emails and encodes them using a cryptographic hashing function which creates an obfuscated string of characters to represent the version of the email we see. Not all jurisdictions have the same definition for personal information and non-personally identifiable information.

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Persistent Identifiers

This is a persistent and unique identifier that can be used to recognize a user over time and across different websites or online services. For example, this can be an IP address, a unique device identifier or a device serial number.

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Personal Information

Personal information is data that can be used to identify or contact a particular individual, such as the individual’s name, email address or billing information, or other data which can be reasonably linked to that data or to that individual’s specific computer or device. When anonymous or non-personal information is directly or indirectly linked with personal information, this anonymous information is also treated as personal information. Where required to do so by law, we will consider persistent identifiers that are not anonymized, de-identified or aggregated as personal information. Not all jurisdictions have the same definition for personal information and non-personally identifiable information.

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Pixel Tag

A pixel tag is a type of technology placed on a website, or within the body of an email for the purpose of tracking activity on websites or when emails are opened or accessed, and is often used in combination with cookies. Pixel refers to the software code that is placed within a web page in order to trigger the placing of cookies and transmits information to us or our third party service providers. This enables two websites to share information. The resulting connection can include information such as a device’s IP address, the time a person viewed the pixel, an identifier associated with the browser or device, the type of browser being used and the URL of the web page from which the pixel was viewed. A pixel tag is also known as a web beacon or Clear GIFs. There may or may not be a visible graphic image associated with the pixel, and often the image is designed to blend into the background of a web page or email.

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Sojern Products

Please see a list of Sojern products here.

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Unique Device Identifier

A unique device identifier (sometimes called a universally unique ID or UUID) is a string of characters that is incorporated into a device by its manufacturer and can be used to uniquely identify that device (for example an IMEI-number of a mobile phone). Different device identifiers vary in how permanent they are, whether they can be reset by users, and how they can be accessed. A given device may have several different unique device identifiers. Unique device identifiers can be used for various purposes, including security and fraud detection, syncing services such as a user’s email inbox, remembering the user’s preferences and providing relevant advertising.

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