Cookie Policy
Last updated
This Cookie Policy explains how AFHCentral LLC (“AFHCentral,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) uses cookies and similar technologies on www.afhcentral.com, app.afhcentral.com, and the AFHCentral mobile application (together, the “Services”).
It expands on Section 5 of our Privacy Policy, which remains the authoritative summary. Read alongside our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions.
At a Glance
- Analytics and advertising cookies are off until you turn them on. Until you make a choice, all analytics and advertising storage is set to denied, and those technologies do not run.
- If you browse our public website without signing in and without consenting, we set no cookies at all apart from the record of your consent choice.
- You can change or withdraw your choice at any time — see Section 5.
- No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. Telephone numbers are never placed into, or transmitted by, any cookie, pixel, tag, or advertising technology described here. See Section 7.
1. What Are Cookies and Similar Technologies?
In short: Small files and storage entries that let a website remember things between page loads.
A cookie is a small text file that a website asks your browser to store and send back on later visits. A first-party cookie is set by the site you are visiting; a third-party cookie is set by a different company whose code the site loads.
We also use technologies that behave like cookies:
- Local storage — browser storage that persists until cleared. We use it to mirror the first-party values below, so that basic functionality and your consent choice keep working when cookies are blocked or cleared.
- Pixels and tags — tiny images or snippets of code that report that a page was viewed or an action occurred.
- Software development kits (SDKs) — code inside our mobile application that performs similar functions.
Throughout this policy, “cookies” means all of these unless we say otherwise. Cookies are classified below by what they are for, which is what determines whether your consent is required.
2. Strictly Necessary Technologies
In short: Required for the Services to work. These are used regardless of your consent choice, are first-party, and are never used for advertising.
These technologies cannot be switched off through our consent banner, because the Services would not function without them. They are not used to build advertising profiles and are not shared with advertising platforms.
| Name | Type | Purpose | Lifetime |
|---|---|---|---|
afhc_consent |
First-party cookie and local storage | Records the consent choice you made, so we do not have to ask again on every AFHCentral site. Set on
.afhcentral.com so a single choice applies across our websites and app. |
2 years |
| Authentication and session storage | First-party local storage and cookies | Keeps you signed in to app.afhcentral.com, and protects against session hijacking and
cross-site request forgery. Only present once you sign in. |
Session, or until you sign out |
_GRECAPTCHA |
Third-party cookie (Google) | Google reCAPTCHA v3, used to distinguish real people from automated abuse on sign-up and other sensitive forms. Collects device and interaction signals for fraud prevention only, and is not used for advertising by us. | Per Google’s settings, typically 6 months |
| WordPress preference cookies ( wordpress_*, wp-settings-*) |
First-party cookies | Set only for signed-in site administrators, to keep them logged in and remember editor preferences. Ordinary visitors never receive these. | Session to 1 year |
Because these are strictly necessary, blocking them in your browser will break sign-in and may prevent forms from submitting.
3. First-Party Marketing Attribution
In short: Our own record of which link brought you here. Never sold, never shared, never used to follow you around other companies’ websites.
When you arrive at the Services from a link, we record how you got here so we can understand which marketing channels are effective. This is a first-party, service-essential measurement of our own marketing. It is stored on our own servers, is not sold, and is not used to build a profile of you across other companies’ websites.
| Name | Type | Purpose | Lifetime |
|---|---|---|---|
afhc_aid |
First-party cookie and local storage | A randomly generated identifier that links your visits together so a sign-up can be attributed to the campaign that produced it. It contains no name, email address, or telephone number. | 2 years |
afhc_ft |
First-party cookie and local storage | Records the first link that brought you to AFHCentral. | 2 years |
afhc_lt |
First-party cookie and local storage | Records the most recent link that brought you to AFHCentral. | 2 years |
An attribution record may contain the campaign parameters in the link you followed (utm_source,
utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_content, utm_term); an advertising
click identifier placed on the link by an ad platform (gclid, gbraid, wbraid,
msclkid, fbclid, ttclid, li_fat_id, or twclid); the
referring website; the page you landed on; your browser user agent; a salted SHA-256 hash of your IP
address, never the raw address; a country code; and the consent choice in effect at the time.
If you create an account, these records are associated with it so we can understand the path that led to sign-up. They are deleted when your account is permanently deleted, as described in Section 7 of our Privacy Policy.
4. Analytics and Advertising Technologies
In short: These run only after you consent. Until then they are disabled and set no identifiers.
We use Google Consent Mode to gate the technologies below. Before you make a choice, all four consent signals
— analytics_storage, ad_storage, ad_user_data, and
ad_personalization — are set to denied. In that state the tags do not write
cookies and do not transmit identifiers; at most they send an anonymous, cookieless signal that a page was viewed.
Analytics
| Name | Provider | Purpose and data | Lifetime |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Tag Manager | Google LLC | A container that loads the tags below according to your consent choice. It does not itself collect personal information or set cookies. | Not applicable |
_ga |
Google LLC | Google Analytics 4. Distinguishes one browser from another so we can count visitors and understand which pages, searches, and features are used. | 2 years |
_ga_<property> |
Google LLC | Google Analytics 4 session state. | 2 years |
We also send some analytics events directly from our servers, so that measurement remains accurate when a browser blocks scripts. Those server-side events carry the same consent state as the browser and are suppressed when you have declined. Google Signals is not enabled on our property.
Advertising
| Name | Provider | Purpose and data | Lifetime |
|---|---|---|---|
_fbp |
Meta Platforms, Inc. | Meta Pixel browser identifier, used to measure whether an advertisement on Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp led to a sign-up. | 90 days |
_fbc |
Meta Platforms, Inc. | Stores the Meta click identifier from the advertisement you clicked. | 90 days |
| Meta Conversions API | Meta Platforms, Inc. | Sends the same conversion events from our servers, sharing the browser and click identifiers above, the event that occurred, and an irreversibly hashed email address for matching. Telephone numbers are never included. | Not applicable |
_gcl_* |
Google LLC | Google Ads conversion tracking. Records that you arrived from a Google advertisement so a later sign-up or subscription can be credited to it, including through offline conversion uploads keyed to a Google click identifier. Telephone numbers are never included. | Up to 90 days |
To the extent the use of these advertising technologies is considered a “sale” or “sharing” of personal information for targeted advertising under United States state privacy laws, you may opt out at any time — see Section 5. We do not sell personal information for money.
Third-party policies and opt-outs
- Google — Privacy Policy, how Google uses cookies, Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on, and My Ad Center for advertising personalization.
- Meta — Privacy Policy and Ad Preferences.
- Industry opt-out tools — the Network Advertising Initiative and the Digital Advertising Alliance.
5. How to Manage or Withdraw Your Consent
In short: You can change your mind at any time, and it takes effect immediately.
You have several options:
- Use our consent banner. It appears on your first visit. To reopen it later and change your choice, use the “Cookie preferences” control on our websites.
- Clear cookies and local storage for
afhcentral.comin your browser. This resets your choice to denied, and the banner will ask again on your next visit. - Change your browser settings. Most browsers let you block or delete cookies, and block third-party cookies specifically. Blocking strictly necessary cookies will break sign-in.
- Send a Global Privacy Control signal — see Section 8.
- Contact us at hello@afhcentral.com and ask us to record an opt-out for your account.
Browser instructions: Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge.
Withdrawing consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before you withdrew it, and it does not affect processing based on another lawful basis, such as operating your account or complying with law. Your consent choice applies to analytics and advertising only — it has no effect on text messaging, which is controlled separately as described in Section 7.
6. Cookies and Storage in Our Mobile App
Mobile applications do not use cookies in the same way browsers do. The AFHCentral app uses on-device storage to keep you signed in, remember your preferences, and hold your consent choice. It uses the same consent signals described in Section 4, so declining in the app has the same effect as declining on the website.
Your device also offers advertising controls outside our app:
- iOS — Settings › Privacy & Security › Tracking, and Settings › Privacy & Security › Apple Advertising.
- Android — Settings › Privacy › Ads, where you can delete or opt out of the advertising ID.
If you use our app on the web, the browser-based technologies described above apply as normal.
7. Mobile Phone Numbers Are Never Used in Advertising Technologies
No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. All of the sharing categories described in our Privacy Policy exclude text messaging originator opt-in data and consent; this information will not be shared with any third parties.
For the avoidance of doubt, and notwithstanding anything else in this Cookie Policy:
- No cookie, pixel, tag, SDK, or server-side integration described here contains, transmits, or derives a mobile or other telephone number — in plain text, hashed, or in any other form.
- We do not transmit telephone numbers to Google, Meta, or any other advertising, analytics, measurement, or data-broker platform.
- We do not use telephone numbers for audience matching, custom audiences, lookalike audiences, retargeting, or any other advertising purpose.
- SMS opt-in records and messaging consent are never used to target, segment, or measure advertising.
Text messages are used only for account verification and security. See Section 4 of our Privacy Policy and Section 5 of our Terms and Conditions.
8. Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control
Most browsers offer a Do-Not-Track (“DNT”) setting. No uniform technical standard for recognizing DNT signals has been finalized, and we therefore do not respond to DNT browser signals. California law requires us to disclose this.
We do honor the Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal. If your browser or a browser extension sends a GPC signal, we treat it as a request to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information for targeted advertising, and we set the consent state for that browser to denied. You can learn more at globalprivacycontrol.org.
9. Changes to This Cookie Policy
We may update this Cookie Policy as our technologies or the law change. The updated version will be indicated by a revised “Last updated” date at the top of this page and takes effect as soon as it is posted. If we add a technology that requires your consent, we will ask for it before that technology runs.
10. Contact Us
If you have questions about our use of cookies, email hello@afhcentral.com, call +1 206-309-6407, or write to us at:
AFHCentral LLC259 E Main St
Auburn, WA 98002
United States
See also our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions.