Cookies, Pixels & Similar Technologies

How Cookies Work

Cookies and other similar technologies help provide a better, faster and safer experience.

Technologies like cookies, pixel tags ("pixels"), and local storage are used to deliver, secure, and understand products, services, and ads, on and off Global Catalog. We want this page to help you understand more about these technologies and how they are used. Your browser or device may allow you to block these technologies, but you may not be able to use some features on Global Catalog if you block them. For more information about whether these tools are available, what they do and how they work, visit your browser or device's help material. Generally, tools like these in your browser or device affect only that particular browser or device. So if you’re using multiple browsers or devices, you can make different choices for each of them.

Check back here from time to time to get the latest information about these technologies and how they are used.

What are cookies, pixels, local storage and similar technologies?

We and our affiliates, third parties, and other partners (“partners”) use these technologies for security purposes and to deliver products, services and advertisements, as well as to understand how these products, services and advertisements are used. With these technologies, a website or application can store information on your browser or device and later read that information back. We explain more about each of these technologies and how they are used on this page.

1/ Cookies are small files that are placed on your browser or device by the website or app you’re using or ad you’re viewing. Like most websites, we use cookies to provide you with a better, faster and safer experience.

2/ Pixel tags (also called clear GIFs, web beacons, or pixels) are small blocks of code on a webpage that allow websites to do things like read and place cookies. The resulting connection can include information such as the person’s IP address, the time the person viewed the pixel and the type of browser being used.

We use pixels on and off Global Catalog, like when you visit our site or one of our partners. Pixels allow us to read any existing Global Catalog cookies or also place a new cookie on your browser or device. We use pixel tags to customize your experience and learn about how people use products and services. For example, we can use pixel tags to see that a person using a certain browser was served an ad on Global Catalog and also bought a product from that advertiser. This helps us show advertisers that the ads they run on Global Catalog are effective.

We also may use pixels to help serve you an ad on or off Global Catalog. For example, a partner may use a pixel to tell us when you’ve visited their site so that we can later serve you an ad on Global Catalog. We also use pixels to know when you’ve seen or interacted with Global Catalog content, like when you’ve read an email notification we’ve sent you so that we can avoid showing the same notification when you visit the Global Catalog website or app, or to otherwise measure, understand, and improve our services.

3/ Local storage is an industry-standard technology that allows a website or app to store and retrieve data on a person’s computer, mobile phone or other device. Some examples include device or HTML5 local storage and caching. Most web browsers offer settings for you to control whether or not to allow local storage.

We use local storage to understand and improve how our products and services perform and to enable certain features. For example, we may store certain parts of the Global Catalog website on your device so that those pages load faster the next time you visit them.

Why do we use these technologies?