Cookie Policy
This policy explains what cookies and similar technologies A Lot'l Axolotls and its affiliated companies (including Axolotl City) use on alotlaxolotls.ca, why, and how you can control them. It is Part 3 of our legal pages and should be read with the Terms of Service & Privacy Policy.
Last updated: 29 September 2026
What cookies are
A cookie is a small text file a website stores in your browser. Some are needed for the site to work (staying signed in, keeping a shopping cart), some remember choices, and some are set by third parties for advertising or measurement. We also use browser storage (localStorage and sessionStorage) for the same kinds of purposes; this policy covers those too.
Cookies we set today
Most cookies on the site are strictly necessary: the site does not work without them, or they only remember a choice you made. The exceptions are Google Analytics, which is on by default except in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, and Google AdSense, which shows ads and personalises them only as described under "Advertising". We do not use tracking pixels. You can change your choices at any time from the "Your privacy choices" link in the footer.
| Cookie | Set by | Purpose | Lasts | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
wordpress_logged_in_*, wordpress_sec_*, wp-settings-* |
A Lot'l Axolotls (WordPress) | Keeps you signed in and remembers your account preferences. | Session, or 14 days if you tick "Remember me" | Strictly necessary |
wordpress_test_cookie |
A Lot'l Axolotls (WordPress) | Checks that your browser accepts cookies when you sign in. | Session | Strictly necessary |
wp_woocommerce_session_*, woocommerce_cart_hash, woocommerce_items_in_cart |
A Lot'l Axolotls (WooCommerce) | Holds your shopping cart and checkout session. | Up to 2 days | Strictly necessary |
alotl_region |
A Lot'l Axolotls | Remembers the country and currency you chose (Canada · CA$ or United States · US$). | 30 days | Strictly necessary |
alotl_view |
A Lot'l Axolotls | Remembers that you opened The Lot'l Pond in its compact "app" view. | 1 day | Strictly necessary |
alotl_kid |
A Lot'l Axolotls | Remembers which child profile is active in the kids' learning hub (a profile number only). | 1 year | Strictly necessary |
alotl_tos_ok, alotl_dob, alotl_country |
A Lot'l Axolotls | Carry your sign-up form answers (Terms ticked, date of birth, country) to the "Continue with Google" step. Never stored on our servers as cookies beyond that. | Session | Strictly necessary |
bp-*, bb-* |
A Lot'l Axolotls (BuddyBoss, The Lot'l Pond) | Community display preferences such as the feed filter you last used. | Session to 1 year | Strictly necessary |
__cf_bm, cf_clearance |
Cloudflare (our hosting provider's network) | Distinguishes people from automated traffic to protect the site. | 30 minutes to 1 year | Strictly necessary (security) |
g_csrf_token and Google sign-in cookies |
Only if you press "Continue with Google": secures the sign-in handshake. | Session | Strictly necessary (when used) | |
alotl_consent |
A Lot'l Axolotls | Remembers the choices you make under "Your privacy choices" (analytics and personalised ads). | 180 days | Strictly necessary (stores your choice) |
alotl_geo, alotl_prov (browser session storage) |
A Lot'l Axolotls | Remember your country for the visit (from our network provider, Cloudflare) and, for visitors in Canada, your province (from Axolotl City's location service, see Advertising), so the right privacy defaults apply. Not cookies; cleared when you close the tab. | Session | Strictly necessary |
_ga, _ga_* |
Google Analytics 4 | Counts visits and tells apart visitors so we can see which pages are useful. On by default, except in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, where it is set only after you agree. Switch it off any time under "Your privacy choices". Google Signals and ad personalisation are off; Google truncates IP addresses. | 2 years | Analytics (consent required in the EEA, UK and Switzerland) |
__gads, __gpi, __eoi, IDE, DSID |
Google AdSense | Ads on most pages (never the home page, the kids' hub, cart, checkout or your account). For every visitor: cap how often you see the same ad, report on ads in aggregate and prevent fraud. Used to personalise ads only where "Advertising" below says so. | Up to 13 months | Advertising |
PayPal cookies |
PayPal | Set when PayPal's payment buttons load (product, cart and checkout pages) and when you pay with PayPal or a card through PayPal: fraud prevention and completing the payment. | Set by PayPal | Strictly necessary (when used) |
Browser storage: the kids' learning hub keeps lesson progress on your account, not in your browser; Ask Axel keeps a temporary conversation token in sessionStorage so a guest can continue their chat until the tab is closed.
Third-party content that can set its own cookies
- YouTube — videos on our Media page load only after you press play, through youtube-nocookie.com. Until then only a preview image is fetched from YouTube's image servers (i.ytimg.com), which sets no cookie.
- Google — "Continue with Google" loads Google's sign-in script on the account page; Google's own privacy policy applies to that step.
- PayPal — the payment buttons on the cart, checkout and product pages are PayPal's; PayPal's privacy policy applies when you pay.
- Gravatar (Automattic) — in The Lot'l Pond, members who have not uploaded a photo may be shown their Gravatar, which is requested from Gravatar's servers.
- Amazon — product links marked "Buy on Amazon" take you to Amazon; we earn a commission as an Amazon Associate. Amazon sets no cookies on our site.
Advertising
We show Google AdSense advertisements on most pages, but never on the home page, in the kids' hub, cart, checkout, your account or the private areas of The Lot'l Pond. Outside Europe, ads appear for every visitor and what changes by region is whether they are personalised. In the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, Google asks for your consent first in its own message and, depending on your answer, may show limited ads or none. In Quebec, ads are not personalised unless you turn personalisation on under "Your privacy choices" (Quebec's Law 25 requires this), and the same applies to any visitor in Canada whose province cannot be determined. Elsewhere, including the rest of Canada and the United States, ads may be personalised unless you turn it off there or your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal. To tell provinces apart, when a visitor in Canada first interacts with a page that has ads (unless they have already made a choice or their browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal), their browser asks a location service run by Axolotl City, our affiliated company, on Cloudflare's network; it receives the visitor's IP address and returns only the country and province. Google explains its advertising cookies at policies.google.com/technologies/cookies.
You can also opt out of personalised advertising directly: Google Ads Settings (adssettings.google.com), the Digital Advertising Alliance of Canada (youradchoices.ca), the DAA (aboutads.info/choices) and the NAI (optout.networkadvertising.org).
How to control cookies
Every browser lets you see, delete and block cookies (usually under Settings → Privacy). Blocking strictly necessary cookies means you cannot sign in or check out. If you clear cookies, your country/currency choice and any compact-view or child-profile preference reset. The "Your privacy choices" link in the footer lets you switch analytics and personalised ads on or off at any time; turning personalised ads off is how residents of US states with that right opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information for targeted advertising, and a browser Global Privacy Control signal does the same automatically.
Your rights and the law that applies
We follow Canada's PIPEDA and Quebec's Law 25 (non-essential cookies are off by default and only set with your consent), and, where they apply to you, the GDPR/UK GDPR and US state privacy laws such as the CCPA/CPRA. The Privacy Policy explains your rights of access, correction and deletion and how to exercise them.
Questions
Write to our privacy officer at info@alotlaxolotls.ca. We update this page whenever a cookie is added or removed; the date above tells you when.
