Cookies look very delicious in the picture next to this text. However often on the web, they will leave a very sour taste in your mouth if you inspect them more closely. In many cases, they are used to track your actions, build a profile of you, and then influence you with ads or other means, with a goal to get you to do something that somebody else wants. Be it to purchase an item, to vote some person, or something else.
However, not all the cookies are used for tracking, nor they are bad. Some can be essential for the functionality of the website. That is also the case here at WishSimply.
So we use cookies also at WishSimply, and in this blog post, we will explain them thoroughly that you can make an informed decision to accept or block them.
Cookie consent
Before we go deeper into those cookies would like to lift up one other thing, and it is our missing cookie consent policy. You might be thinking that it is required by law in the EU, where we are located, but that is not exactly the case. It is required by law only if you don't use only strictly essential cookies. We are using only strictly essential cookies and that is why we don't need to ask about them. Most of the other sites will ask for cookie consent, but they only need to do because they want to track you.
Cookie consent should be asked explicitly, and it should be clear and you should have an equal right to refuse them as easily as you can accept them. Unfortunately many companies are not doing so, but are rather making it as hard as possible for the users to decline them like in this cookie consent game.(← Check that out, it is fun and takes only a little of your time).
WishSimply cookies
Above we told that all of our cookies are strictly necessary, but you might argue that it is not the case. Partly we can agree because they are there for your convenience. It is a bit like cars have doors (If we forget the law for a moment because it will probably require them). The car could be fully working and capable to transport you from place A to place B without the doors, but they are so damn convenient and everybody has included them. They are like industry-standard to what is sold, and by this angle, it is quite easy to include different convenience features as a necessary functionality.
Some might argue that the same will apply to the marketing/tracking cookies, but for those, there was the law and anyway, we don't use them now or later.
Below is full disclosure about our cookies that you can make an informed decision to block or allow them. However, as we don't track you, it would be hard to see that why anybody would refuse to accept the doors that we offer for our car.
WishSimply cookie disclousure
WishSimply uses the following cookies.
PLAY_LANG - Stores your language so that we can show our pages in your preferred language when you browse on our site. (If you delete this we will show our site for you in the language that your browser will use, and generate this cookie again when you log in to the service next time)
WISHLIST_SESSION - This is our session cookie and it keeps inside the authentication information. (If you delete this you will need to login to the service again, and then we will create this cookie again.) wishlistLoginEmail - Stores the last used login e-mail so that we can show for you in our pages your email address and making login next time easier for you as you don't need to type your email address. (If you delete this you will need to type your email address next time when you log in to our service. We will recreate this cookie again when you log in to WishSimply again.)
csrftoken - This helps to protect the site from cross-site scripting (one kind of cyber attack). It will contain a random key that is used in communication with WishSimply.com service. (If you delete this, it won't affect anything. We will create it again. If you block it, you will not be able to edit anything in the WishSimply again as we consider that your submissions are not safe anymore.)
userInviteEmail - If you are inviting somebody to see your list before you have registered yourself, we are storing your invitees to this cookie that they would be still available for you after you finish the registration to the service. Later on, this cookie is not used anymore. (If you delete this you will need to type your invitees' email address again.)
userInviteText - If you are inviting somebody to see your list before you have registered yourself, we are storing your invitation text to this cookie that it would be still available for you after you finish the registration to the service. Later on, this cookie is not used anymore. (If you delete this you will need to type your invitation text again.)
You cannot avoid WishSimply's cookies, but you can delete/block them with the above-told consequences.
CloudFlare cookies
WishSimply uses Cloudflare (cloudflare.com) to cache site resources globally around the world, to make the site as fast as possible for everybody regardless of their location, and also to mitigate threats (cyber attacks) for the service so that it would be safe for all the users.
CloudFlare can also set a few cookies on the users' machine, that their service will use. You can read more about Cloudflare's cookies in their good post here.
WishSimply doesn't share any information that users have given to us to Cloudflare and has deemed that CloudFlare's usage is not a problem for privacy, and thus uses it. Should that change we would drop CloudFlare out.
You cannot avoid CloudFlare cookies either if you choose to use WishSimply's service, but you can also delete/block them.
Email cookies
WishSimply is not using any 3rd party email services which are commonly placing tracking cookies to emails, unlike most of the other services. WishSimply is sending emails from its own service and is not tracking them or you. (In case you would like to prevent other services to track your emails, here are a few good hints for that.)
Other cookies
WishSimply has a blog from where you are probably reading this post too. In this blog, we have also used some 3rd party services like embedded YouTube or Vimeo videos or embedded PDFs from Slide or similar companies to make content nicer. Once you visit those blog post pages you may get their cookies to your browser. We are considering removing those embedded 3rd party contents, but at the moment they are there.
WishSimply will offer also Google and Facebook logins for the service. WishSimply is not using their preferred javascript buttons (which would place cookies on your machine as soon as you see (no click needed) those buttons), but only images that will lead to their services. In case you want to use those login methods you will be directed to their services to authenticate yourself. At that point, they will place cookies on your browser. WishSimply doesn't recommend people to use those services for logins, but because so many people use those services we have offered them that convenience. That is however implemented in such a way that people that don't want to be tracked by Facebook or Google when they use this service they can do so without any effort. That is the default here.
You can avoid all of these cookies by not using 3rd party login methods or by not reading our blog, or by using a browser extension (Hint!) to block tracking and marketing cookies. WishSimply recommends blocking all tracking and marketing cookies. It will make your web browsing faster and safer for you.
Cookies at WishSimply
Cookies look very delicious in the picture next to this text. However often on the web, they will leave a very sour taste in your mouth if you inspect them more closely. In many cases, they are used to track your actions, build a profile of you, and then influence you with ads or other means, with a goal to get you to do something that somebody else wants. Be it to purchase an item, to vote some person, or something else.
This is one reason why we have recommended blocking 3rd party cookies with some selected applications.
However, not all the cookies are used for tracking, nor they are bad. Some can be essential for the functionality of the website. That is also the case here at WishSimply.
So we use cookies also at WishSimply, and in this blog post, we will explain them thoroughly that you can make an informed decision to accept or block them.
Cookie consent
Before we go deeper into those cookies would like to lift up one other thing, and it is our missing cookie consent policy. You might be thinking that it is required by law in the EU, where we are located, but that is not exactly the case. It is required by law only if you don't use only strictly essential cookies. We are using only strictly essential cookies and that is why we don't need to ask about them. Most of the other sites will ask for cookie consent, but they only need to do because they want to track you.
Cookie consent should be asked explicitly, and it should be clear and you should have an equal right to refuse them as easily as you can accept them. Unfortunately many companies are not doing so, but are rather making it as hard as possible for the users to decline them like in this cookie consent game.(← Check that out, it is fun and takes only a little of your time).
WishSimply cookies
Above we told that all of our cookies are strictly necessary, but you might argue that it is not the case. Partly we can agree because they are there for your convenience. It is a bit like cars have doors (If we forget the law for a moment because it will probably require them). The car could be fully working and capable to transport you from place A to place B without the doors, but they are so damn convenient and everybody has included them. They are like industry-standard to what is sold, and by this angle, it is quite easy to include different convenience features as a necessary functionality.
Some might argue that the same will apply to the marketing/tracking cookies, but for those, there was the law and anyway, we don't use them now or later.
Below is full disclosure about our cookies that you can make an informed decision to block or allow them. However, as we don't track you, it would be hard to see that why anybody would refuse to accept the doors that we offer for our car.
WishSimply cookie disclousure
WishSimply uses the following cookies.
PLAY_LANG - Stores your language so that we can show our pages in your preferred language when you browse on our site. (If you delete this we will show our site for you in the language that your browser will use, and generate this cookie again when you log in to the service next time)
WISHLIST_SESSION - This is our session cookie and it keeps inside the authentication information. (If you delete this you will need to login to the service again, and then we will create this cookie again.) wishlistLoginEmail - Stores the last used login e-mail so that we can show for you in our pages your email address and making login next time easier for you as you don't need to type your email address. (If you delete this you will need to type your email address next time when you log in to our service. We will recreate this cookie again when you log in to WishSimply again.)
csrftoken - This helps to protect the site from cross-site scripting (one kind of cyber attack). It will contain a random key that is used in communication with WishSimply.com service. (If you delete this, it won't affect anything. We will create it again. If you block it, you will not be able to edit anything in the WishSimply again as we consider that your submissions are not safe anymore.)
userInviteEmail - If you are inviting somebody to see your list before you have registered yourself, we are storing your invitees to this cookie that they would be still available for you after you finish the registration to the service. Later on, this cookie is not used anymore. (If you delete this you will need to type your invitees' email address again.)
userInviteText - If you are inviting somebody to see your list before you have registered yourself, we are storing your invitation text to this cookie that it would be still available for you after you finish the registration to the service. Later on, this cookie is not used anymore. (If you delete this you will need to type your invitation text again.)
You cannot avoid WishSimply's cookies, but you can delete/block them with the above-told consequences.
CloudFlare cookies
WishSimply uses Cloudflare (cloudflare.com) to cache site resources globally around the world, to make the site as fast as possible for everybody regardless of their location, and also to mitigate threats (cyber attacks) for the service so that it would be safe for all the users.
CloudFlare can also set a few cookies on the users' machine, that their service will use. You can read more about Cloudflare's cookies in their good post here.
WishSimply doesn't share any information that users have given to us to Cloudflare and has deemed that CloudFlare's usage is not a problem for privacy, and thus uses it. Should that change we would drop CloudFlare out.
You cannot avoid CloudFlare cookies either if you choose to use WishSimply's service, but you can also delete/block them.
Email cookies
WishSimply is not using any 3rd party email services which are commonly placing tracking cookies to emails, unlike most of the other services. WishSimply is sending emails from its own service and is not tracking them or you. (In case you would like to prevent other services to track your emails, here are a few good hints for that.)
Other cookies
WishSimply has a blog from where you are probably reading this post too. In this blog, we have also used some 3rd party services like embedded YouTube or Vimeo videos or embedded PDFs from Slide or similar companies to make content nicer. Once you visit those blog post pages you may get their cookies to your browser. We are considering removing those embedded 3rd party contents, but at the moment they are there.
WishSimply will offer also Google and Facebook logins for the service. WishSimply is not using their preferred javascript buttons (which would place cookies on your machine as soon as you see (no click needed) those buttons), but only images that will lead to their services. In case you want to use those login methods you will be directed to their services to authenticate yourself. At that point, they will place cookies on your browser. WishSimply doesn't recommend people to use those services for logins, but because so many people use those services we have offered them that convenience. That is however implemented in such a way that people that don't want to be tracked by Facebook or Google when they use this service they can do so without any effort. That is the default here.
You can avoid all of these cookies by not using 3rd party login methods or by not reading our blog, or by using a browser extension (Hint!) to block tracking and marketing cookies. WishSimply recommends blocking all tracking and marketing cookies. It will make your web browsing faster and safer for you.
Feedback
Any comments about cookies?
Cheers,
WishSimply