Cookie Handling

Overview

Extole drops a minimum number of cookies as part of the handling of the referral program. Cookies are designed to be specific to your program and your site and are not used in any cross-site capacity.

Make Sure Your Cookies Are Yours

Your Extole program should be run from your program domain to ensure any cookie created by the Extole program is specific to YOUR domain. This means you "core.js" file, used to operate your referral program, should be under your branded domain and look similar to:

<script type="text/javascript" src="https://refer.brand.com/core.js" async></script>

If your core script is loading from "tags.extole.com" or "origin.extole.io" it should be updated to be under your branded domain. This will prevent any cookies generated from the Extole Corporate website to include in your referral program.

Consumer Referral Cookies

The following cookies are used by the referral program when a consumer interacts

Website URL	Cookie Name	Cookie Purpose	Cookie Duration	Category
refer.brand.com	`access_token`	Remember an Advocate/Friend	1 year	Essential
www.brand.com	`extole_access_token`	Remember an Advocate/Friend	1 year	Essential
refer.brand.com	`xtl_bid`	Browser Identifier used for Fraud Prevention	1 year	Fraud

My Extole (Admin) Cookies

The following cookies are used by the My Extole as part of the platform.

Website URL	Cookie Name	Cookie Purpose	Cookie Duration	Category
my.extole.com	`access_token`	Session token for the My Extole user	4 hours	Essential
my.extole.com	`feature_toggle`	Preference cookie for feature toggles	1 year	Preference

Chrome Cookie Handling

You may have seen announcements about Google Chrome’s changes to handling cookies in February 2020. Google Chrome’s changes will not affect Extole-powered programs, and there is no action required on your behalf.

Google Chrome’s changes are targeted towards third-party, cross-domain tracking cookies and insecure cookies. An Extole program for Brand. Inc. at brand.com that is run inside a branded domain using a CNAME would run under refer.brand.com. All cookies associated with that program are first-party cookies, are not affected by this change, and cannot be used for cross-site tracking. By using Extole's best practice, privacy is protected since these cookies do not follow a user to different domains are cannot be used for cross domain tracking.

An Extole program for Brand. Inc. at brand.com that is not run inside a branded domain using a CNAME would run under brand.extole.io or share.brand-referrals.com. All cookies associated with that program are third-party, cross-domain cookies. We have updated these cookies to use the setting SameSite=None, and the attribute Secure, so these cookies are not affected by this change either.

Safari Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP)

Safari on macOS, iOS, and iPad OS continues to offer industry leading privacy protection from cross domain ad tracking. Tracking prevention is targeted towards third-party, cross-domain tracking cookies. An Extole program for Brand. Inc. at brand.com that is run inside a branded domain using a CNAME would run under refer.brand.com. All cookies associated with that program are first-party cookies, are not affected by this change, and cannot be used for cross-site tracking. By using Extole's best practice, privacy is protected since these cookies do not follow a user to different domains are cannot be used for cross domain tracking.