What Are Cookies
A cookie is a small text file that may be stored on your computer or mobile device that contains data related to a website you visit. It may allow a website to “remember” your actions or preferences over a period of time, or it may contain data related to the function or delivery of the site. Cookies can be set by the owner of the website or in some cases by third party services the website owner allows to present other information, run content or advertisements, or provide other functionality such as analytics. Further information on cookies and cookie notices can be found at the following link to the European Commission’s webpage on cookies and EU law.
How We Use Cookies
We use cookies for the best experience on our website, including social media features and to analyse traffic. For more information see a detailed description of the different types of cookies below. Within the Preference Centre, by clicking "Allow All" you agree to our use of all cookies. To alter the types of cookies we use click on the tabs on the left hand side of the 'Preference Centre'. However, blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer.
Disabling Cookies
You can prevent the setting of cookies by adjusting the settings on your browser (see your browser Help for how to do this). Be aware that disabling cookies will affect the functionality of this and other websites that you visit. Disabling cookies will usually result in also disabling certain functionality and features of the this site.
The Cookies We Set
Strictly Necessary Cookies
These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work.
Performance Cookies
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.
Functional Cookies
These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then some or all of these services may not function properly.
Targeting/Advertising Cookies
These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. These cookies are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
Social Media Cookies
These cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.
Third Party Cookies
In some cases we also use cookies provided by trusted third parties. The following section details which third party cookies you might encounter through this site.
This site uses Google Analytics which is one of the most widespread and trusted analytics solution on the web for helping us to understand how you use the site and ways that we can improve your experience. These cookies may track things such as how long you spend on the site and the pages that you visit so we can continue to produce engaging content.
We also use social media buttons and/or plugins on this site that allow you to connect with your social network in various ways. For these to work the following social media sites including; Facebook, Twitter, will set cookies through our site which may be used to enhance your profile on their site or contribute to the data they hold for various purposes outlined in their respective privacy policies.
More Information
If you would like to control your cookie settings via your browser, you can use the links below and follow the steps provided for each browser.
Hopefully that has clarified the use of cookies on the gaa.ie website, however if you would like further information then you can contact our Data Protection Officer at the following email address: dataprotection@gaa.ie
Our website is scanned with our cookie scanning tool regularly to maintain a cookie list as accurate as possible. Please see below for a current list of cookies on gaa.ie.
| Host | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Performance Cookies | ||
| First party cookie - .gaa.ie | _ga | This cookie name is asssociated with Google Universal Analytics - which is a significant update to Google's more commonly used analytics service. This cookie is used to distinguish unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier. It is included in each page request in a site and used to calculate visitor, session and campaign data for the sites analytics reports. By default it is set to expire after 2 years, although this is customisable by website owners. Duration: 2 years |
| First party cookie - .gaa.ie | _gid | This cookie name is asssociated with Google Universal Analytics. This appears to be a new cookie and as of Spring 2017 no information is available from Google. It appears to store and update a unique value for each page visited. Duration: one day. |
| First party cookie - .gaa.ie | _gat | This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics, according to documentation it is used to throttle the request rate - limiting the collection of data on high traffic sites. It expires after 10 minutes. Duration: one minute. |
| First party cookie - .gaa.ie | _gat_UA-11918670-1 | This is a pattern type cookie set by Google Analytics, where the pattern element on the name contains the unique identity number of the account or website it relates to. It appears to be a variation of the _gat cookie which is used to limit the amount of data recorded by Google on high traffic volume websites. Duration: one hour. |
| First party cookie - .gaa.ie | _gat_gtag_UA_65758692_27 | Duration: one hour. |
| First party cookie - .gaa.ie | _gat_gtag_UA_10410142_1 | Duration: 2 hours. |
| Functionality Cookies | ||
| First party cookie - www.gaa.ie | __atuvs | This cookie is associated with the AddThis social sharing widget which is commonly embedded in websites to enable visitors to share content with a range of networking and sharing platforms. This is believed to be a new cookie from AddThis which is not yet documented, but has been categorised on the assumption it serves a similar purpose to other cookies set by the service. Duration: 29 minutes. |
| First party cookie - learning.gaa.ie | has_js | Most commonly associated with the Drupal content management system. Drupal uses this cookie to indicate whether or not the visitors browser has JavaScript enabled. Duration: Session |
| First party cookie - www.gaa.ie | __atuvc | This cookie is associated with the AddThis social sharing widget which is commonly embedded in websites to enable visitors to share content with a range of networking and sharing platforms. It stores an updated page share count. Duration: one year. |
| Third party cookie - accounts.google.com | GAPS | This domain is owned by Google. The main business activity is: User Accounts sub-domain. Cookies in this domain have lifespans between 1 month to 2 years. Duration: 2 months. |
| Third party cookie - gaa-mapping.openapp.ie | csrftoken | Duration: one year |
| Third party cookie - gaatokwebwe.azurewebsites.net | ARRAffinity | Duration: Session |
| Targeting/Advertising Cookies | ||
| First party cookie - .gaa.ie | _fbp | Used by Facebook to deliver a series of advertisement products such as real time bidding from third party advertisers. Duration: 3 months. |
| Third party cookie - .addthis.com | loc | This domain is owned by AddThis. AddThis provides web widgets that site owners embed into their pages or other content to enable visitors to create and share links to the content across social networks. They also make use of the data collected to provide advertisers and marketers with profile information for targeted behavioral advertising. Stores the visitors geolocation to record location of sharer. Duration: one year. |
| Third party cookie - .addthis.com | uvc | This domain is owned by AddThis. AddThis provides web widgets that site owners embed into their pages or other content to enable visitors to create and share links to the content across social networks. They also make use of the data collected to provide advertisers and marketers with profile information for targeted behavioral advertising. Tracks how often a user interacts with AddThis. Duration: one year. |
| Third party cookie - .doubleclick.net | IDE | This domain is owned by Doubleclick (Google). The main business activity is: Doubleclick is Googles real time bidding advertising exchange. Duration: 7980 years. |
| Third party cookie - .doubleclick.net | id | This domain is owned by Doubleclick (Google). The main business activity is: Doubleclick is Googles real time bidding advertising exchange. Duration: 2 months. |
| Third party cookie - .facebook.com | datr | This domain is owned by Facebook, which is the world's largest social networking service. As a third party host provider, it mostly collects data on the interests of users via widgets such as the 'Like' button found on many websites. This is used to serve targeted advertising to its users when logged into its services. In 2014 it also started serving up behaviourally targeted advertising on other websites, similar to most dedicated online marketing companies. This cookie identifies the browser connecting to Facebook. It is not directly tied to individual Facebook the user. Facebook reports that it is used to help with security and suspicious login activity, especially around detection of bots trying to access the service. Facebook also say the behavioural profile associated with each datr cookie is deleted after 10 days. This cookie is also read via Like and other Facebook buttons and tags placed on many different websites. Duration: 2 months. |
| Third party cookie - .facebook.com | fr | This domain is owned by Facebook, which is the world's largest social networking service. As a third party host provider, it mostly collects data on the interests of users via widgets such as the 'Like' button found on many websites. This is used to serve targeted advertising to its users when logged into its services. In 2014 it also started serving up behaviourally targeted advertising on other websites, similar to most dedicated online marketing companies. Contains browser and user unique ID combinaton, used for targeted advertising. Duration: 3 months. |
| Third party cookie - .facebook.com | lu | This domain is owned by Facebook, which is the world's largest social networking service. As a third party host provider, it mostly collects data on the interests of users via widgets such as the 'Like' button found on many websites. This is used to serve targeted advertising to its users when logged into its services. In 2014 it also started serving up behaviourally targeted advertising on other websites, similar to most dedicated online marketing companies. Used to manage the login process, remembers user on return visit if they choose to stay logged in. Duration: 2 months |
| Third party cookie - .google.com | APISID | This domain is owned by Google Inc. Although Google is primarily known as a search engine, the company provides a diverse range of products and services. Its main source of revenue however is advertising. Google tracks users extensively both through its own products and sites, and the numerous technologies embedded into many millions of websites around the world. It uses the data gathered from most of these services to profile the interests of web users and sell advertising space to organisations based on such interest profiles as well as aligning adverts to the content on the pages where its customer's adverts appear. Duration: 2 months. |
| Third party cookie - google.com | SSID | This domain is owned by Google Inc. Although Google is primarily known as a search engine, the company provides a diverse range of products and services. Its main source of revenue however is advertising. Google tracks users extensively both through its own products and sites, and the numerous technologies embedded into many millions of websites around the world. It uses the data gathered from most of these services to profile the interests of web users and sell advertising space to organisations based on such interest profiles as well as aligning adverts to the content on the pages where its customer's adverts appear. Duration: 2 months |
| Third party cookie - .google.com | NID | This domain is owned by Google Inc. Although Google is primarily known as a search engine, the company provides a diverse range of products and services. Its main source of revenue however is advertising. Google tracks users extensively both through its own products and sites, and the numerous technologies embedded into many millions of websites around the world. It uses the data gathered from most of these services to profile the interests of web users and sell advertising space to organisations based on such interest profiles as well as aligning adverts to the content on the pages where its customer's adverts appear. Duration: one year. |
| Third party cookie - .google.com | SID | This domain is owned by Google Inc. Although Google is primarily known as a search engine, the company provides a diverse range of products and services. Its main source of revenue however is advertising. Google tracks users extensively both through its own products and sites, and the numerous technologies embedded into many millions of websites around the world. It uses the data gathered from most of these services to profile the interests of web users and sell advertising space to organisations based on such interest profiles as well as aligning adverts to the content on the pages where its customer's adverts appear. This cookie is used by Google in combination with HSID to verify a Google user account and most recent login time. Duration: 2 months |
| Third party cookie - .google.com | SAPISID | This domain is owned by Google Inc. Although Google is primarily known as a search engine, the company provides a diverse range of products and services. Its main source of revenue however is advertising. Google tracks users extensively both through its own products and sites, and the numerous technologies embedded into many millions of websites around the world. It uses the data gathered from most of these services to profile the interests of web users and sell advertising space to organisations based on such interest profiles as well as aligning adverts to the content on the pages where its customer's adverts appear. Duration: 2 months. |
| Third party cookie - .google.com | HSID | This domain is owned by Google Inc. Although Google is primarily known as a search engine, the company provides a diverse range of products and services. Its main source of revenue however is advertising. Google tracks users extensively both through its own products and sites, and the numerous technologies embedded into many millions of websites around the world. It uses the data gathered from most of these services to profile the interests of web users and sell advertising space to organisations based on such interest profiles as well as aligning adverts to the content on the pages where its customer's adverts appear. Used by Google in combination with SID to verify Google user account and most recent login time. Duration: 2 months. |
| Third party cookie - .m.youtube.com | LOGIN_INFO | YouTube is a Google owned platform for hosting and sharing videos. YouTube collects user data through videos embedded in websites, which is aggregated with profile data from other Google services in order to display targeted advertising to web visitors across a broad range of their own and other websites. Duration: 7980 years. |
| Third party cookie - .twitter.com | auth_token | This domain is owned by Twitter. The main business activity is: Social Networking Services. Where twitter acts as a third party host, it collects data through a range of plug-ins and integrations, that is primarily used for tracking and targeting. Twitter does not currently provide information on the use of specific cookies. Duration: 14 years. |
| Third party cookie - .twitter.com | twll | This domain is owned by Twitter. The main business activity is: Social Networking Services. Where twitter acts as a third party host, it collects data through a range of plug-ins and integrations, that is primarily used for tracking and targeting. Twitter does not currently provide information on the use of specific cookies. Duration: 4 years |
| Third party cookie - .twitter.com | secure_session | This domain is owned by Twitter. The main business activity is: Social Networking Services. Where twitter acts as a third party host, it collects data through a range of plug-ins and integrations, that is primarily used for tracking and targeting. Twitter does not currently provide information on the use of specific cookies. Duration: 14 years |
| Third party cookie - .twitter.com | guest_id | This domain is owned by Twitter. The main business activity is: Social Networking Services. Where twitter acts as a third party host, it collects data through a range of plug-ins and integrations, that is primarily used for tracking and targeting. Twitter does not currently provide information on the use of specific cookies. Duration: 2 months |
| Third party cookie - .twitter.com | __utma | This domain is owned by Twitter. The main business activity is: Social Networking Services. Where twitter acts as a third party host, it collects data through a range of plug-ins and integrations, that is primarily used for tracking and targeting. Duration: 2 months |
| Third party cookie - .twitter.com | personalization_id | This domain is owned by Twitter. The main business activity is: Social Networking Services. Where twitter acts as a third party host, it collects data through a range of plug-ins and integrations, that is primarily used for tracking and targeting. Duration: one year |
| Third party cookie - .twitter.com | remember_checked | This domain is owned by Twitter. The main business activity is: Social Networking Services. Where twitter acts as a third party host, it collects data through a range of plug-ins and integrations, that is primarily used for tracking and targeting. Twitter does not currently provide information on the use of specific cookies. Duration: 4 years |
| Third party cookie - .twitter.com | remember_checked_on | This domain is owned by Twitter. The main business activity is: Social Networking Services. Where twitter acts as a third party host, it collects data through a range of plug-ins and integrations, that is primarily used for tracking and targeting. Duration: 4 years |
| Third party cookie - .www.youtube.com | LOGIN_INFO | YouTube is a Google owned platform for hosting and sharing videos. YouTube collects user data through videos embedded in websites, which is aggregated with profile data from other Google services in order to display targeted advertising to web visitors across a broad range of their own and other websites. Duration: 7980 years |
| Third party cookie - .youtube.com | SID | YouTube is a Google owned platform for hosting and sharing videos. YouTube collects user data through videos embedded in websites, which is aggregated with profile data from other Google services in order to display targeted advertising to web visitors across a broad range of their own and other websites. This cookie is used by Google in combination with HSID to verify a Google user account and most recent login time. Duration: 7980 years |
| Third party cookie - .youtube.com | HSID | YouTube is a Google owned platform for hosting and sharing videos. YouTube collects user data through videos embedded in websites, which is aggregated with profile data from other Google services in order to display targeted advertising to web visitors across a broad range of their own and other websites. Used by Google in combination with SID to verify Google user account and most recent login time. Duration: 7980 years |
| Third party cookie - .youtube.com | VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE | YouTube is a Google owned platform for hosting and sharing videos. YouTube collects user data through videos embedded in websites, which is aggregated with profile data from other Google services in order to display targeted advertising to web visitors across a broad range of their own and other websites. This cookie is used as a unique identifier to track viewing of videos. Duration: 6 months |
| Third party cookie - .youtube.com | PREF | YouTube is a Google owned platform for hosting and sharing videos. YouTube collects user data through videos embedded in websites, which is aggregated with profile data from other Google services in order to display targeted advertising to web visitors across a broad range of their own and other websites. This is a common Google cookie, used across several of their services. Stores user preference, can be used to personalise ads on google searches. Duration: 4 years |
| Third party cookie - .youtube.com | APISID | YouTube is a Google owned platform for hosting and sharing videos. YouTube collects user data through videos embedded in websites, which is aggregated with profile data from other Google services in order to display targeted advertising to web visitors across a broad range of their own and other websites. Duration: 7980 years |
| Third party cookie - .youtube.com | GPS | YouTube is a Google owned platform for hosting and sharing videos. YouTube collects user data through videos embedded in websites, which is aggregated with profile data from other Google services in order to display targeted advertising to web visitors across a broad range of their own and other websites. Duration: 30 minutes |
| Third party cookie - .youtube.com | SSID | YouTube is a Google owned platform for hosting and sharing videos. YouTube collects user data through videos embedded in websites, which is aggregated with profile data from other Google services in order to display targeted advertising to web visitors across a broad range of their own and other websites. Duration: 7980 years |
| Third party cookie - .youtube.com | LOGIN_INFO | YouTube is a Google owned platform for hosting and sharing videos. YouTube collects user data through videos embedded in websites, which is aggregated with profile data from other Google services in order to display targeted advertising to web visitors across a broad range of their own and other websites. Duration: 7980 years |
| Third party cookie - .youtube.com | YSC | YouTube is a Google owned platform for hosting and sharing videos. YouTube collects user data through videos embedded in websites, which is aggregated with profile data from other Google services in order to display targeted advertising to web visitors across a broad range of their own and other websites. Duration: 7980 years |
| Third party cookie - .youtube.com | SAPISID | YouTube is a Google owned platform for hosting and sharing videos. YouTube collects user data through videos embedded in websites, which is aggregated with profile data from other Google services in order to display targeted advertising to web visitors across a broad range of their own and other websites. Duration: 7980 years |
| Third party cookie - cdn.syndication.twimg.com | lang | This domain is owned by Twitter. The main business activity is: Social Networking Services. Where twitter acts as a third party host, it collects data through a range of plug-ins and integrations, that is primarily used for tracking and targeting. Twitter does not currently provide information on the use of specific cookies. Duration: Session |
| Third party cookie - facebook.com | lu | This domain is owned by Facebook, which is the world's largest social networking service. As a third party host provider, it mostly collects data on the interests of users via widgets such as the 'Like' button found on many websites. This is used to serve targeted advertising to its users when logged into its services. In 2014 it also started serving up behaviourally targeted advertising on other websites, similar to most dedicated online marketing companies. Used to manage the login process, remembers user on return visit if they choose to stay logged in. Duration: 7980 years |
| Third party cookie - m.youtube.com | LOGIN_INFO | YouTube is a Google owned platform for hosting and sharing videos. YouTube collects user data through videos embedded in websites, which is aggregated with profile data from other Google services in order to display targeted advertising to web visitors across a broad range of their own and other websites. Duration: 7980 years |
| Third party cookie - www.facebook.com | lu | This domain is owned by Facebook, which is the world's largest social networking service. As a third party host provider, it mostly collects data on the interests of users via widgets such as the 'Like' button found on many websites. This is used to serve targeted advertising to its users when logged into its services. In 2014 it also started serving up behaviourally targeted advertising on other websites, similar to most dedicated online marketing companies. Used to manage the login process, remembers user on return visit if they choose to stay logged in. Duration: 7980 years |
| Third party cookie - www.youtube.com | LOGIN_INFO | YouTube is a Google owned platform for hosting and sharing videos. YouTube collects user data through videos embedded in websites, which is aggregated with profile data from other Google services in order to display targeted advertising to web visitors across a broad range of their own and other websites. Duration: 7980 years |