A cookie is a small text file that stores Internet settings. Almost every website uses cookie technology. The cookie is downloaded by your Internet browser the first time you visit a website. The next time you visit this website from the same device, the cookie and the information in it are either sent back to the originating website (first-party cookies) or to another website to which it belongs (third-party cookies). By that, the website can detect that it has already been opened using this browser, and in some cases it will then vary the content it shows.
Some cookies are extremely useful because they can improve your user experience when you return to a website you have already visited. This assumes that you are using the same device and the same browser as before; if so, cookies will remember your preferences, will know how you use the website, and will adapt the content you are shown so that it is more relevant to your personal interests and needs.
You can completely disable cookies in your browser at any time.
It is important to note that if you change your settings and block certain cookies, you will not be able to take full advantage of some features of our site, and we might not be able to provide some features you have previously chosen to use.
Based on what function cookies have and the purpose for which cookies are used, there are four categories of cookies: strictly necessary cookies, performance cookies, functional cookies and marketing cookies.
These cookies are necessary for the proper functioning of the community, such as tracking a user session, or accessing secure areas.
The information these cookies collect is anonymous and is used to collect aggregate data including information about the pages users visit.
These cookies allow websites to remember preferences and settings, such as your username, language, region, font size, and so on.
These cookies remember that you've visited a website, a particular web page, and/or track your activities on the site. This information is sometimes shared with third party advertisers for serving targeted online advertising or other personalized content.
Cookie Name: _ga
Description: Distinguishes users using a unique ID. It is used by Google Analytics to calculate visitor, session, and campaign data. By default, the configuration setting that sets this cookie is disabled.
Expiration: 2 years (persistent)
Type of Cookie: 2
If removed, disabled, or not accepted: Visitor and session data will not be tracked and will not be available to Google Analytics
Cookie Name: !lithiumSSO:{client_id}
Description: Used for passing authentication information to th
Expiration: session
Type of Cookie: 1
If removed, disabled, or not accepted: authentication will not be functional for the user
Cookie Name: LiSESSIONID
Description: Session management
Expiration: session
Type of Cookie: 1
If removed, disabled, or not accepted: User cannot log in, and is treated as an anonymous user
Cookie Name: lia.anon.{setting or config name}
Description: Stores community-wide configurations and settings for anonymous users
Expiration: 1 year (persistent)
Type of Cookie: 3
If removed, disabled, or not accepted: Community behavior will follow defaults and any UI convenience changes made by the user will be ignored.
Cookie Name: lithium.anonymous.usersetting.{setting name}
Description: Remembers user preferences
Expiration: 1 year (persistent)
Type of Cookie: 3
If removed, disabled, or not accepted: The community will not remember the user’s setting preferences
Cookie Name: lithium.anonymous.usersetting.profile.language
Description: Remembers language preferences
Expiration: 1 year (persistent)
Type of Cookie: 3
If removed, disabled, or not accepted: The community will not remember the user’s language preferences. The language will default to the native language defined for the community.
Cookie Name: lithiumLogin:{community id}
Description: Keeps users logged in when they make a request after their session has expired. It is triggered when a user checks Save login name and password. The cookie is encrypted and includes a unique user secure ID in the database.
Expiration: 30 days (persistent)
Type of Cookie: 3
If removed, disabled, or not accepted: The "auto login" and "remember me" features will not work
Cookie Name: LithiumNotifications
Description: Temporarily stores Realtime Notification messages (Toast messages)
Expiration: session
Type of Cookie: 3
If removed, disabled, or not accepted: Realtime notification toasts may not appear (pop-up) after a page transition.
Cookie Name: LithiumUserInfo
Description: Session management
Expiration: session
Type of Cookie: 1
If removed, disabled, or not accepted: The user will not be able to view secure pages and will be redirected to the login page
Cookie Name: LithiumUserSecure
Description: Secure Session management
Expiration: session
Type of Cookie: 1
If removed, disabled, or not accepted: The user will not be able to view secure pages and will be redirected to the login page.
Cookie Name: LithiumVisitor
Description: Replaces VISITOR_BEACON. Lithium currently uses both for backward compatibility. This cookie computes billing visits, registered billing visits, visits, registered visits, and unique visitors metrics. The cookie is encrypted and stores when it was first issued, when it was last seen by Lithium, an unique visitor ID (which is unique per visitor’s browser).
Expiration: 10 years
Type of Cookie: 4
If removed, disabled, or not accepted: Visits and unique visitors metrics will not be accurate. There will be a new billable visit on each new request. Customers on billing visits model will be affected.
Cookie Name: P{poll_id}U{user_id}R{reset_count}
Description: Tracks when a user has voted in a poll and tracks the answer value. The cookie is used to prevent a user from voting multiple times in a single poll. The cookie is only placed if Use cookies to prevent multiple votesis enabled in Community Admin.
Expiration: 1,000000+ days
Type of Cookie: 3
If removed, disabled, or not accepted: If the user is an anonymous user, the user will be able to vote multiple times when the cookie is cleared. If the user is logged in, votes, and then clears the cookie, they are not allowed to revote.
Cookie Name: PushyAuthToken
Description: Authenticates the user for a session with Realtime Notifications service (Pushy)
Expiration: Manually cleared when the user logs out or when their session expires due to inactivity
Type of Cookie: 1
If removed, disabled, or not accepted: WebSocket connections to the Realtime Notification service will fail with a 403 Forbidden error and the user will not see realtime notifications.
Cookie Name: VISITOR_BEACON
Description: Computes billing visits, registered billing visits, visits, registered visits, and unique visitors metrics. The cookie is encrypted and stores, when it was first issued, when it was last seen by Lithium, the user ID, and its own unique ID.
Expiration: 10 years
Type of Cookie: 4
If removed, disabled, or not accepted: Visits and unique visitors metrics will not be accurate. There will be a new billable visit on each new request. Customers on billing visits model will be affected.
Cookie Name: VISITORID
Description: Distinguishes between human and bot traffic
Expiration: 3 years
Type of Cookie: 1
If removed, disabled, or not accepted: Defeats the bot detection mechanism. (May see increased spam on the community.)
Cookie Name: ValueSurveyParticipation
Description: Stores a timestamp storing the creation time of this cookie, which is used in value survey trigger logic.
Expiration: 90 days
Type of Cookie: 3
If removed, disabled, or not accepted: The user will get multiple prompts to take a survey
Cookie Name: ValueSurveyVisitorCount
Description: Stores the survey visit count of the user, which is used in logic that determines when a survey is triggered. This cookie is used in conjunction with the ValueSurveyParticipation cookie.
Expiration: Expires when the ValueSurveyParticipation cookie is either set or expires
Type of Cookie: 3
If removed, disabled, or not accepted: The user will not be prompted to take a survey
Cookie Name: SMSESSION
Description: This session cookie tags the user with an ID while he/she is using the site so the web servers can respond to his/her actions.
Expiration: Session
Type of Cookie: 1
If removed, disabled, or not accepted: The user will not be able to authenticate him-/herself
Cookie Name: AWSALB
Description: These cookies enable us to allocate server traffic to make the user experience as smooth as possible. A so-called load balancer is used to determine which server currently has the best availability. The information generated cannot identify you as an individual.
Expiration: 7 days
Type of Cookie: 1
If removed, disabled, or not accepted: Performance issues may occure
Cookie Name: LithiumVisitor_DC
Description: This cookie ist a copy of the LithiumVisitor-cookie
Expiration: Session
Type of Cookie: 4
If removed, disabled, or not accepted: Performance issues may occure