Our policies

Cookie statement

MIT Technology Review ("MIT Technology Review," "we," "us," or "our") is an independent media company owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). This Cookie Statement explains how we use cookies and similar technologies in the course of our business, including through our websites that link to this Cookie Statement, such as http://www.techreview.com, http://www.technologyreview.com, http://subscribe.technologyreview.com, and https://events.technologyreview.com, or any website or mobile application owned, operated or controlled by us (collectively, “Websites” or “websites”). It explains what these technologies are and why we use them, as well as your rights to control our use of them. This Cookie Statement is and will be treated as part of our Terms of Service and is automatically incorporated therein. Capitalized terms used and not otherwise defined in this Cookie Statement have the meanings given to those terms in our Privacy Policy.

In some cases, we may use cookies and other tracking technologies described in this Cookie Statement to collect Personal Information, or to collect information that becomes Personal Information if we combine it with other information. For more information about how we process your Personal Information, please consult our Privacy Policy.

What are cookies?

Cookies are small data files that are placed on your computer or mobile device when you visit a website. Cookies are widely used by online service providers in order to (for example) make their websites or services work, or to work more efficiently, as well as to provide reporting information.

Cookies set by the website owner or service provider (in this case, MIT Technology Review) are called “first party cookies”. Cookies set by parties other than the website owner are called “third party cookies”. Third party cookies enable third party features or functionality to be provided on or through the website or service you are using (such as advertising, interactive content and analytics). The third parties that set these third-party cookies can recognize your computer both when it visits the website or service in question and also when it visits certain other websites or services.

Why do we use cookies and other tracking technologies?

We use first party and third-party cookies for several reasons. Some cookies are required for technical reasons in order for our Websites and Services to operate, and we refer to these as “essential” or “strictly necessary” cookies. Other cookies enable us and the third parties we work with to track and target the interests of visitors to our Websites, and we refer to these as “performance” or “functionality” cookies. For example, we use cookies to tailor content and information that we may send or display to you and otherwise personalize your experience while interacting with our Websites and to otherwise improve the functionality of the Services we provide. We also enable our users to employ cookies and similar tracking technologies in connection with their use of our Services in order to allow us and our users to track their subscribers. Finally, third parties serve cookies through our Websites and Services for advertising, analytics, and other purposes. This is described in more detail below.

Cookies served through our Websites

Other tracking technologies

We and our third-party partners may use other, similar technologies from time to time, like web beacons, pixels (or “clear gifs”) and other tracking technologies. These are tiny graphics files that contain a unique identifier that enable us to recognize when someone has visited our Websites or, in the case of web beacons, opened an e-mail that we have sent them. This allows us, for example, to monitor the traffic patterns of users from one page within our Websites to another, to deliver or communicate with cookies, to understand whether you have come to our Websites from an online advertisement displayed on a third-party website, to serve targeted advertisements to you and others like you, to improve site performance, and to measure the success of marketing campaigns. While you may not have the ability to specifically reject or disable these tracking technologies, in many instances, these technologies are reliant on cookies to function properly; accordingly, in those instances, declining cookies will impair functioning of these technologies.

Targeted online advertising

We have engaged one or more third party service providers to track and analyze both individualized usage and volume statistical information from interactions with our Websites. We also partner with one or more third parties (such as advertisers and ad networks) to display advertising on our Websites and/or to manage and serve advertising on other sites.

These third parties use cookies, web beacons, pixel tags and similar tracking technologies to collect and use certain information about your online activities, either on our Websites and/or other sites or mobile apps, to infer your interests and deliver you targeted advertisements that are more tailored to you based on your browsing activities and inferred interests (“Interest Based Advertising”). For more information about this practice, click here: http://www.aboutads.info/choices/.

Our third-party service providers may also use cookies or web beacons to collect information about your visits to our Websites and/or other sites to measure and track the effectiveness of advertisements and our online marketing activities (for example, by collecting data on how many times you click on one of our ads). The information collected by these third parties does not include personal information that enables you to be specifically identified (e.g. by reference to your name or email address).

How can I control cookies?

You have the right to decide whether to accept or reject cookies.

Website Cookie Preference Tool: You can exercise preferences about what cookies are served on our Websites by visiting the TRUSTe preference center by clicking this link:http://preferences-mgr.truste.com/.

Browser Controls: You can set or amend your web browser controls to accept or refuse cookies. If you choose to reject cookies, you may still use our Websites though your access to some functionality and areas of our Websites may be restricted. As the means by which you can refuse cookies through your web browser controls vary from browser-to-browser, you should visit your browser’s help menu for more information.

Disabling Most Interest Based Advertising: Most advertising networks offer you a way to opt out of Interest Based Advertising. If you would like to find out more information, please visit http://www.aboutads.info/choices/ or http://www.youronlinechoices.com.

Mobile Advertising: You can opt out of having your mobile advertising identifiers used for certain types of Interest Based Advertising, including those performed by us, by accessing the settings in your Apple or Android mobile device and following the most recent published instructions. If you opt out, we will remove all data about you and no further data collection or tracking will occur. The random ID we (or our third party partners) had previously assigned to you will also be removed. This means that if at a later stage, you decide to opt-in, we will not be able to continue and track you using the same ID as before, and you will for all practical purposes be a new user to our system.

Do Not Track: Some Internet browsers - like Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari - include the ability to transmit “Do Not Track” or “DNT” signals. Since uniform standards for “DNT” signals have not been adopted, our Websites do not currently process or respond to “DNT” signals. MIT Technology Review takes privacy and meaningful choice seriously and will make efforts to continue to monitor developments around DNT browser technology and the implementation of a standard. To learn more about “DNT”, please visit All About Do Not Track.

How often will you update this Cookie Statement?

We may update this Cookie Statement from time to time in order to reflect, for example, changes to the cookies we use or for other operational, legal or regulatory reasons. Please therefore re-visit this Cookie Statement regularly to stay informed about our use of cookies and related technologies.

The date at the bottom of this Cookie Statement indicates when it was last updated.

Where can I get further information?

If you have any questions about our use of cookies or other technologies, please contact us at privacy@technologyreview.com.

Updated May 8, 2018