Last updated: 20 June 2019

At Creative Commons (“Creative Commons,” we, our, or us), we respect your concerns about privacy and value the relationship that we have with you. This Cookies Notice (the “Notice”) explains how we use cookies and other similar technology to recognize you when you visit our websites that link to this Notice (the “Site”). It explains what these technologies are and why we use them, as well as your rights to control our use of them.

What are cookies?

Cookies are text files that are downloaded to your computer or mobile device when you visit a website and store certain information about Site usage. They are useful because they allow websites to recognize a user’s device. They are then returned to the original website on each subsequent visit or to any other website that recognizes them. For more information on cookies, go to https://knowcookies.com.

The term “cookie” is used in this Notice in the broad sense to include all similar techniques and technology, including web beacons and log files.

Types of information collected and reasons for collection

Cookies help us to better understand your use of our Site and, as a result, allow us, among other things, to offer our web visitors a more personalized and consistent experience. Here are examples of the types of information that we collect through cookies:

• The number of users visiting the Creative Commons Site, the frequency with which the Site was viewed, the pages viewed, the clicks made on the Site and the total duration of navigation on the Site;
• The name of the website visited prior to the Creative Commons Site;
• Whether you are visiting our Site for the first time or not;
• Your viewing preferences (e.g. layout, sizing preferences, language etc.);
• Your purchases and your orders;
• Your user name, your password, the type of browser used and your IP address, so that we can identify you during your next visits.

In addition, cookies allow us to do the following:

• Customize your visit: We may use information collected during your visit to facilitate your next visit to our Site and to customize Site content
• Analyze trends: We compile information on our Site visits and analyze them as a whole in aggregated form. This type of study aims to identify trends among many visitors to our Site, rather than analyze the information of a particular visitor

Type of cookies we use

We use first-party and third-party cookies for several reasons. Some cookies are necessary for technical reasons for our Site to operate and/or provide basic functionality to you, and we refer to these as “essential” cookies. Other cookies enable us to track and target the interests of our users and to enhance the experience on our Site. Third parties also serve cookies through our Site for analytics purposes.

First-party cookies: 

These cookies are created by Creative Commons. They are, for the most part, used to allow you to browse our Site and use its features. They may also assist in analytics activities.

Third-party cookies: 

In addition to our proprietary cookies, some third-party and affiliated companies may place cookies on your computer, access them and associate web beacons with them. These cookies enable third-party features or functionalities to be provided on or through the Site. The parties that set these third-party cookies can recognize your device both when it visits our Site and also when it visits certain other websites.

 The types of first- and third-party cookies we use on the Site are:

• Essential website cookies: These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our Site and to use some of its features, such as access to secure areas that require registration. Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the Site to you, you cannot refuse them without impacting Site functionality
• Functional cookies: These cookies allow you to browse our Site or benefit from some of its features, such as memorizing language preferences, placing orders online or using instant messaging support. Similar to essential cookies, if these cookies are disabled, it could impact your experience to use some site functionality, such as your set preferences
• Analytics cookies: These cookies allow us or our third-party analytics providers to collect statistics on the use of the Site by you and other visitors. Thanks to this information, Creative Commons is able to improve the features offered on its Site

Duration of storage of cookies on your device

The duration of storage of cookies on your device may vary, depending on the category to which they belong: temporary or permanent.

Temporary cookies: 

We use temporary cookies on all our secure pages to assign and register a session ID. You can browse our entire Site without interruption. This identifier is also used for internal reporting purposes. It does not allow us to identify you by name and this type of cookie does not leave any information recoverable on your hard drive. Most of our proprietary cookies fall into this category and expire when you close your Internet browser.

Permanent cookies: 

Our proprietary analysis cookies and third-party cookies are often permanent cookies. They allow us to understand visitors’ browsing behavior over a longer period of time or to provide you with additional features related to your Site customization requests and the content that you have saved or stored. They can stay on your computer for 24 hours, a week or several years, depending on their function. This means that these cookies survive after your browser is closed and can be used by our Site to recognize your computer when you reopen your browser later.

 Cookie management

You can decide whether to accept or reject cookies. If you want to refuse cookies, please follow the instructions below:

 All cookies:

You can exercise your preference to receive all types of cookies by managing cookies from your web browser. As the means by which to activate or deactivate cookies varies from one web browser to another, you should visit your web browser’s help menu for more information on cookie preferences. You can also configure your browser at any time to be notified of the receipt of a cookie, so that you can decide whether you want to accept it or not. Cookies do not under any circumstances read the data from your hard drive and you can delete them from your computer at any time. At the moment, it is technically impossible for you to synchronize your settings between your browsers and your devices (your computer or your smartphone). You must set them on each browser/device that you currently use and each time you use a new browser or device.

Analytics cookies:

To disable analytics cookies managed by our third-party analytics partners, either use the browser disablement mechanisms discussed immediately above, or use the analytics opt-out mechanisms maintained by our analytics providers:
Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on

Consequences of deactivation of all cookies

If you choose to deactivate cookies, you may continue to use certain parts of our Site. However, some useful features may not work anymore, depending on which cookies you deactivate. Please note that if you have disabled one or more cookies, we may continue to use the information that was collected by such cookies before they were deactivated. However, we will cease to collect any information via the opted-out cookie once a cookie has been deactivated.

Changes to the Cookies Notice

 This Notice may be revised occasionally. Any changes made will be reflected on this Site. Please revisit this Cookies Notice regularly to stay informed about our use of cookies. If you have any questions, please contact us as explained below.

Contact us

If you have questions about the use of cookies on our Site, do not hesitate to contact us by email at: legal@creativecommons.org. You will also find more general information about the types of information we collect about you and how you may exercise your data privacy rights in our Privacy Policy.