Cookie Policy

Last updated: June 24, 2026

1. What Are Cookies?

Cookies are small text files that are stored on your computer or mobile device when you visit a website. They are widely used to make websites work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site. Cookies allow a website to recognize your device and remember information about your visit, such as your preferences and settings.

Cookies may be either "persistent" cookies or "session" cookies. A persistent cookie remains on your device after you close your browser and can be used by your browser on subsequent visits to the website. Persistent cookies typically have an expiration date, after which they are automatically deleted. Session cookies are temporary and are deleted when you close your browser.

In addition to cookies, we may also use similar technologies such as web beacons (also known as tracking pixels or clear GIFs), which are tiny graphics files that contain a unique identifier that enables us to recognize when someone has visited our Site. These technologies help us understand user behavior, tell us which parts of our Site users have visited, and facilitate and measure the effectiveness of advertisements and web searches.

2. Types of Cookies We Use

Our Site uses the following categories of cookies:

2.1 Essential Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary for the operation of our Site. They enable you to navigate the Site and use its features, such as accessing secure areas of the Site. Without these cookies, services you have asked for cannot be provided. Essential cookies do not require consent under applicable data protection laws.

Examples of essential cookie functions on our Site include maintaining your session state, enabling load balancing, and remembering your cookie consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.

2.2 Functional Cookies

Functional cookies allow our Site to remember choices you make (such as your username, language, or the region you are in) and provide enhanced, more personalized features. These cookies can also be used to remember changes you have made to text size, fonts, and other parts of web pages that you can customize.

They may also be used to provide services you have asked for such as watching a video or commenting on an article. The information these cookies collect may be anonymized, and they cannot track your browsing activity on other websites.

2.3 Analytics Cookies

These cookies collect information about how visitors use our Site, for instance, which pages visitors go to most often, and if they receive error messages from web pages. These cookies do not collect information that identifies a visitor directly. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. It is only used to improve how our Site works.

We use Google Analytics to help analyze how users interact with the Site. The Google Analytics cookies collect information about your use of the Site and transmit it to Google servers in the United States. Google may use the data collected to contextualize and personalize the ads of its own advertising network. For more information, please see Google's Privacy Policy.

2.4 Advertising Cookies

Advertising cookies are placed on your device by our advertising partners (including Google AdSense) to track your browsing habits across websites. These cookies are used to deliver advertisements that are more relevant to you and your interests. They are also used to limit the number of times you see an advertisement and to help measure the effectiveness of advertising campaigns.

Without these cookies, online advertisements you encounter will be less relevant to you and your interests. These cookies remember the websites you visit and that information is shared with other parties such as advertising technology providers.

3. Google-Specific Cookies

As a publisher that uses Google AdSense to display advertisements, our Site sets cookies from Google and its advertising partners. These cookies are used for purposes including personalized advertising, measuring ad performance, and frequency capping. The following are specific Google-related cookies that may be set when you visit our Site:

3.1 Google AdSense Advertising Cookies

  • __gads: This cookie is associated with the DoubleClick for Publishers service from Google. It is used to serve and manage advertisements on our Site. It tracks whether a user has seen or clicked on an ad. Typical duration is 13 months.
  • __gpi: This cookie is used by Google AdSense to collect information about how visitors use our Site and to serve targeted advertisements. Duration is typically 13 months.
  • __eoi: This cookie is used by Google AdSense to track user interaction with ads. Duration varies.
  • __gpi_optout: This cookie is set when a user opts out of personalized advertising through Google. It stores the user's opt-out preference.

3.2 DoubleClick Cookies

  • IDE: This cookie is set by DoubleClick (owned by Google) and is used for advertising purposes, including serving and rendering ads, personalizing ads, limiting the number of times an ad is shown to you, and measuring the effectiveness of ads. Typical duration is 13 months.
  • test_cookie: This cookie is set by DoubleClick to check if the user's browser supports cookies. Duration is typically 15 minutes.
  • DSID: This DoubleClick cookie is used for advertising across the web and stored on google.com. It contains an encrypted unique ID.

3.3 Google Analytics Cookies

  • _ga: This cookie is set by Google Analytics to distinguish unique users. Duration is 2 years.
  • _ga_<container-id>: This cookie is set by Google Analytics 4 to persist session state. Duration is 2 years.
  • _gid: This cookie is set by Google Analytics to distinguish users. Duration is 24 hours.
  • _gat: This cookie is used by Google Analytics to throttle the request rate. Duration is 1 minute.

You can learn more about how Google uses cookies in advertising at https://policies.google.com/technologies/ads.

4. Third-Party Cookies

In addition to Google cookies, third-party services integrated into our Site may also set cookies on your device. These may include:

  • Social media widgets: If we embed content from platforms like Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube, these platforms may set their own cookies.
  • Other advertising networks: Beyond Google, we may work with other programmatic advertising partners that set cookies for ad targeting and measurement.
  • Content delivery networks (CDNs): Services that help deliver fonts, scripts, and other assets may set performance-related cookies.

We do not control the setting of these third-party cookies, and we recommend that you check the respective privacy policies of these third-party services for more information about their cookie practices and how to manage them.

5. How to Manage and Disable Cookies

You have the right to decide whether to accept or reject cookies. You can exercise your cookie preferences in the following ways:

5.1 Browser Settings

Most web browsers allow you to control cookies through their settings preferences. You can typically configure your browser to:

  • Accept all cookies
  • Reject all cookies (note: this may prevent essential parts of our Site from functioning)
  • Delete existing cookies
  • Receive a notification when a cookie is set
  • Block third-party cookies specifically

To find out how to manage cookies on your specific browser, please visit the browser developer's website:

  • Google Chrome: Settings > Privacy and security > Cookies and other site data
  • Mozilla Firefox: Options > Privacy & Security > Cookies and Site Data
  • Apple Safari: Preferences > Privacy > Cookies and website data
  • Microsoft Edge: Settings > Cookies and site permissions > Manage and delete cookies and site data

5.2 Opt-Out of Interest-Based Advertising

To opt out of receiving interest-based advertising from Google, you can:

Please note that opting out of interest-based advertising does not mean you will no longer see advertisements. You will still see ads, but they will not be tailored to your interests based on your browsing history.

6. EU Cookie Consent

Under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the ePrivacy Directive, we are required to obtain your consent before setting certain types of cookies (specifically, functional, analytics, and advertising cookies) on your device when you first visit our Site from within the European Economic Area (EEA).

When you visit our Site for the first time, you will be presented with a cookie consent banner that allows you to accept or decline non-essential cookies. Essential cookies do not require consent and will be set automatically. You can change your cookie preferences at any time by clearing your browser's cookies and revisiting the Site, which will cause the consent banner to reappear.

By continuing to use our Site after seeing the cookie notice and without explicitly changing your cookie settings, you consent to our use of cookies as described in this Cookie Policy. You can withdraw your consent at any time by deleting cookies from your browser and adjusting your cookie settings as described above.

7. Changes to This Cookie Policy

We may update this Cookie Policy from time to time to reflect changes in the cookies we use, operational practices, or legal and regulatory requirements. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Cookie Policy on this page and updating the "Last updated" date at the top of this page.

You are advised to review this Cookie Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Cookie Policy are effective when they are posted on this page. If we make material changes, we may provide more prominent notice, such as a notification on the Site homepage.

8. Contact Us

If you have any questions about our use of cookies or this Cookie Policy, please contact us:

  • Email: [email protected]
  • Contact Form: Visit our Contact Us page
  • Mail: sellingvis.com, 1 Astronomy Way, Science Park, CA 94105, United States

For more information about how we handle your personal data, please read our Privacy Policy.