Cookie policy

This policy explains the kinds of cookie and browser storage this site uses, what each kind is for, and which of them wait for your agreement. The names, one by one, are not repeated here. They are listed at the end of this policy, in a list the software draws from its own record of what it stores — so the list changes on the day the code does, and cannot drift from it the way a hand-written copy in a policy can. Where this policy and that list ever seem to disagree, the list describes what the site does.

This text has not been reviewed by a solicitor or a data-protection specialist. It is a plain description of how this service actually works, published because operating with nothing written down is worse than publishing an unreviewed statement. A reviewed version will replace it. Where a fact is genuinely undecided, this document says so in the place the fact would have gone rather than filling the space with a plausible sentence.

The privacy policy covers everything else we hold about you.

1. Browsing sets no cookie, unless you ask for one

Reading this site signed out — searching, browsing, opening a conference page, reading the blog — sets no cookie. Not a session cookie, not an analytics cookie, not a consent cookie. The exceptions are yours to choose: if you accept analytics, Google Analytics sets two; if you accept advertising measurement and arrived from one of our Google advertisements, one more is set (section 2).

That is not only a policy position. Signed out, this site keeps no record of behaviour of its own: the function that captures it cannot be called without a signed-in person, and the build fails if anything tries.

A few things may be kept inside your own browser while you browse — section 3 says which kinds, and none of them is sent to us while you are signed out.

2. The cookies, by kind

Every cookie this site's own server sets is httpOnly, so no script can read it; restricted to this site with SameSite=Lax; and marked Secure in production, so a browser only ever sends it over an encrypted connection. In production most of their names begin __Secure-, which makes the browser enforce that last point; the list below shows each name as this site writes it.

• Signing in. One cookie keeps you signed in. It is set when you sign in, removed when you sign out, and lasts thirty days, renewed while you use the site; your saves, ticked dates and followed series depend on it. For an account with two-step sign-in, two more cookies last ten minutes at most: one holds your place between your password and the code from your authenticator app, the other records that a step was closed after too many wrong codes, so the next screen can say so. Signing in with Google uses one cookie for five minutes to check that the sign-in coming back to this site is the one your browser started. Essential — without them there is no way to be signed in.
• Switching organization. If you belong to more than one organization and switch between them, one cookie remembers the one you chose until you close the browser. It holds the organization and a check value, nothing that names you. Essential to that feature, and set only when you switch.
• Advertising measurement, only if you say yes. If you accept it and arrived from one of our Google advertisements, one cookie holds a random identifier that only this site can read, so that a later sign-up or purchase can be credited to that advertisement. It lasts ninety days from the last advertisement you followed and is removed when you withdraw your answer. It is never set without your agreement. What is sent to Google is described in section 8.
• Google Analytics, only if you say yes. If you accept analytics, Google's tag writes two cookies on this site's own domain: one holds a random identifier for this browser, the other the current visit. They are the exception to the first sentence of this section — Google's tag writes them in your browser and reads them, and sends the identifier to Google with the pages you visit. They last thirteen months from your last visit, and are deleted when you withdraw your answer. They are never set without your agreement. What is sent to Google is described in section 7.
• Analytics, only if you say yes. If you are signed in and have accepted analytics, one cookie holds a random identifier that groups the pages of one sitting together for the counts organizers see. It says nothing about who you are, and it is removed when you sign out or withdraw your answer. It is never set without your agreement.

There is no marketing cookie; the advertising measurement cookie above is the only advertising one, it is read only by this site, and nothing follows you to another site. Our sign-in library can write two more cookies — one that "trusts this browser" so the code step of two-step sign-in is skipped for a month, and one that makes a sign-in end when the browser closes. No screen here asks for either, and this site refuses any request that does.

3. Things kept in your browser that are not cookies

These are stored by your browser and are not sent to us with a request. Clearing site data in your browser removes them. Each is in the list further down, with how long it lasts.

• Your answer to the cookie banner, and which version of its wording you saw, so you are not asked again and your answer can be matched to the words you saw. Written only once you answer.
• The appearance you chose, light or dark, if you chose one.
• The conferences you have opened recently, as identifiers and nothing else, so the list survives a closed tab. It goes nowhere while you are signed out. When you sign in it is handed to your account once and deleted from the browser.
• A form held in one tab while you sign up — a conference you were adding, or a claim on a listing you started — so nothing you typed is lost on the way. It stays in that tab only, is removed once it is filed, and is not used once it is more than a day old.
• For staff, a result carried across the moment the article editor reloads, removed as soon as it is read.

Your consent answer lives here rather than on our server, and that is deliberate. What is stored is a preference about a browser, not a record about a person. Giving a signed-out visitor a server-side consent record would mean minting an identifier for them and writing rows against it — building the identified trail the choice exists to prevent, in the name of honouring it. Once you are signed in, the same answer is stored on your account, because that is the copy the recording actually reads. Signed in, every answer you give on the banner is also kept on your account: what you chose, when, and which version of the banner's wording you saw. Withdrawing from Cookie preferences is kept too, with the time and what you turned off.

4. Nothing from anybody else, unless staff install it

Out of the box no third party's code runs here: no advertising pixel, no social widget, no embedded video player, no map tile service, and no font served from somebody else's network — the typefaces are served from this site. A content security policy sent with every page tells your browser it may load scripts, styles, fonts and connections only from this site, and images only from this site and our own image store.

The one exception we may switch on is Google Analytics. When it is on, Google's tag is loaded only after you accept analytics, and the content security policy then allows Google's own addresses for it and no other. Section 7 says what it records and sends.

Staff can install a third-party script. If they do, it is named in the list further down with the answer it waits for: one that waits for analytics or marketing consent runs only after you give it, and one staff have marked necessary runs without asking. What it stores is decided by its provider. The content security policy then allows that script's own address and no other.

The one place this site appears inside another is the listing widget an organizer can embed on their own conference website. That widget sets no cookie and records nothing.

5. What your consent answer actually controls

The banner controls behavioural analytics on your account — whether we record which conference pages you opened, what you searched for and how you arrived — and the one analytics cookie described above, which exists only to group that record into sittings — and, when it is on, Google Analytics (section 7). The privacy policy sets out exactly what that covers and what it deliberately excludes. Advertising measurement has its own answer (section 8).

Refusing, and dismissing the banner without answering, are the same thing. Capture stays off until somebody actively accepts, which is the only reading of silence that makes sense.

Refusing costs you nothing. Search, browse, conference pages, saving, reminders, submitting a listing and managing one all work identically. Nothing is degraded, delayed or withheld.

The marketing half of the banner decides whether an organizer may be given your name and email rather than an anonymous identifier, and whether we may send you marketing email other than the digest. It never changes the digest, which you turn on and off in your settings. Signed in, that answer is kept on your account as well. There is no marketing cookie, and the only advertising one is the advertising measurement cookie in section 2, set only if you accept it.

6. Changing your mind

Use Cookie preferences in the footer of any public page. It clears the stored answer, withdraws it from your account if you are signed in, and brings the banner back — so withdrawing is the same single click accepting was. Signed in, the same choice also sits in your account settings, which is the copy the recording reads.

Rejecting is exactly as easy as accepting: one button, in the same place, with the same weight. That is a legal requirement rather than a design preference, and a directory whose whole argument is trust should not open with a dark pattern.

You can also block or delete cookies in your browser. Blocking the sign-in cookie means you cannot stay signed in, and everything that depends on an account stops working; everything that does not depend on an account carries on.

7. Analytics

We use Google Analytics to understand how people use Conference2Go — which pages get read, which searches come up empty (never what was searched for), where people give up. It tells us what to fix.

What this stores: an identifier in your browser that only this site can read, and a record of the pages you visit here.

What we send to Google: that identifier, the pages and actions, the campaign that brought you if there was one, or the website that sent you, your device and browser, and an approximate location worked out from your network address. Not your name, not your email address, and not anything you have saved.

This is off until you accept it, and you can change your mind at any time.

8. Advertising measurement

We advertise Conference2Go on Google. When you arrive from one of those advertisements we record which one brought you, so we can tell which advertising is worth paying for. If you later create an account or buy a placement, we tell Google that the advertisement led somewhere — not who you are.

What this stores: an identifier in your browser that only this site can read, and the advertisement’s own reference from the link you followed.

What we send to Google: that the conversion happened, when, and what it was worth. Where Google needs an email address to match a conversion, it is sent as an irreversible hash, never as plain text.

If you accept both analytics and advertising measurement, Google may also use the analytics record when reporting on our advertising.

This is off until you accept it, and you can change your mind at any time. Decline it and none of the above happens — we simply see fewer conversions and buy advertising with less information.

9. What is recorded, signed out and signed in

Signed out

Unless you accept analytics or advertising measurement, nothing about your visit is written down — not which conferences you opened, not what you searched for, not where you came from. Our own record of behaviour is kept only while you are signed in. If you accept analytics, Google Analytics records the pages you visit; if you accept advertising measurement, we keep which of our advertisements brought you. Both are described in sections 7 and 8.

• No cookie is set by browsing the public site, unless you accept analytics or advertising measurement.
• No account, no sign-in and no consent answer is needed to use any of it.
• Some things are remembered inside your own browser. Every one is listed at the end of this policy, with what it is for and how long it stays.
• Search, browse, conference pages, saved-date prompts and every landing page work the same whether you accept, refuse, or never answer.

Signed in

Sign-in sets a session cookie, which is what keeps you signed in and what your saves and ticked dates hang from. Behaviour is recorded only if you have accepted analytics on your account — the default is off, and refusing changes nothing else about how the product works for you. If you have, we record:

• Which conference pages you open, and the field and country of each.
• What you searched for and how many results it returned.
• The country the request arrived from and your browser’s primary language. The IP address is read to derive the country and never stored.
• How you arrived, as a class — “search engine”, “social”, “academic” — never the referring address itself.

10. What organizers and we see

An organizer sees counts for their own listings, in aggregate. Any figure resting on fewer than 5 events is suppressed rather than shown, because an “aggregate” of three people is not an aggregate. Nothing is sold, and no organizer is shown an individual.

Individual event rows are deleted after 400 days, and nothing takes their place: no daily or other summary of them is kept, so past that window the events are gone rather than summarised. Your search queries are turned into search results on our own machines: the model that reads them runs inside our search service, so a query never leaves our infrastructure for a third party.

11. Changes to this policy

If this policy changes materially we will publish the new version, say so, and keep the earlier version readable. The version number and date are at the top of this page. Every part of this page above the list is this policy, and changes only by a new version. The list itself is not part of this text: it is generated from the software, and changes with it.

Questions go to the contact page.

12. Everything this site stores in your browser

This list is drawn from the software’s own record of what it stores, so it changes on the day the code does. Each name is shown as this site writes it.