Knowledge Base Article

Khoros Cookies Datasheet (Community, Care, Marketing, Khoros Bot)

Cookies are small data files stored in web browsers to track usage and enable useful services and features when using Khoros Services or interacting with Khoros. This document provides information on the standard cookies used by Khoros Services and Khoros generally and how to reject or delete those cookies should users choose to do so. Understand that restricting cookies can have an adverse impact on the functionality and the online user experience when interacting with Khoros and Khoros Services.

We classify the cookies typically used by Khoros and Khoros Services into the four broad categories described below.

Type

Classification

Description

Example

1

Strictly necessary

These cookies are necessary for the proper functioning of the community, such as tracking a user session, or accessing secure areas.

Session cookie used to pin a logged-in session to a browser

2

Performance

The information these cookies collect is anonymous and is used to collect aggregate data including information about the pages users visit.

Cookies delivered by Omniture WebAnalytics and Google Analytics for purposes of aggregate reporting

3

Functional

These cookies allow websites to remember preferences and settings, such as your username, language, region, font size, and so on.

Cookie used to hold a user’s username as part of a “remember me” feature

4

Tracking, targeting and sharing

These cookies remember that you've visited a website, a particular web page, and/or track your activities on the site. This information is sometimes shared with third party advertisers for serving targeted online advertising or other personalized content.

Cookies used to track visitor activity on an individual basis can be used by Khoros or its third party business partners to serve personalized content, and/or later aggregated and used to analyze website traffic and trends.

How to control cookies

Some cookies are necessary for the proper operation of Khoros Services and disabling or removing them may have an adverse impact on the proper functioning and user experience. However, users may choose to view, block, or remove cookies set by Khoros Services through their web browser settings (or any website cookies for that matter). Consult the help feature for your specific browser to find how. Here are some useful links for your convenience.

Also, you may choose to consult an external and independent third party website such as AboutCookies.org or www.youronlinechoices.eu/ if you are in the European Union which provides comprehensive information on a variety of browsers and how to control or change their respective privacy settings.

Cookies used by Khoros

The following standard cookies are used by:

Turning off or removing these cookies may have an adverse impact on the proper functioning and user experience when interacting with Khoros and/or using Khoros Services.

Khoros Community Cookies

Cookie Name

Type

Description and Purpose

Expiration Time/Type

If removed, disabled, or not accepted

AWSALB

1

AWS sticky session cookie required for load balancer routing. See this document for further information.

Request ( persists for 7 days)

Sticky session won't work and some functionality will break.

AWSALBCORS

1

For continued stickiness support with CORS use cases after the Chromium update, we are creating additional stickiness cookies for each of these duration-based stickiness features named AWSALBCORS (ALB). See https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticloadbalancing/latest/application/sticky-sessions.html for further information.

Request ( persists for 7 days)

 

_ga

2

Distinguishes users using a unique ID. It is used by Google Analytics to calculate visitor, session, and campaign data. By default, the configuration setting that sets this cookie is disabled. File a Support ticket to request enablement.

2 years (persistent)

Visitor and session data will not be tracked and will not be available to Google Analytics

!lithiumSSO:{client_id}

1

Used for passing authentication information to Khoros

This cookie is a cancel cookie. Khoros sets this cookie so that we don't re-read the original lithiumSSO cookie set with SSO.

session

SSO will not be functional for the user

LiSESSIONID

1

Session management

session

User cannot log in, and is treated as an anonymous user

­­lia.anon.{setting or config name}

3

Stores community-wide configurations and settings for anonymous users

1 year (persistent)

Community behavior will follow defaults and any UI convenience changes made by the user will be ignored.

liSdkOptions:{communityId}

3

Dropped when a Studio user navigates to Studio > Advanced > SDK and clicks Submit after checking the View as anonymous checkbox.

 

The cookie allows developers to sign out of the community but still have it find the URL to use for rendering a skin that is hosted via the Community Plugin SDK.

 

This cookie is used only on stage sites.

1 month or when the View as anonymous checkbox is unselected The community will serve the URL for the skin set on the stage site instead of the URL to the locally hosted skin (so local SASS development will not work when the user is signed out)

lithium.anonymous.
usersetting.{setting name}

3

Remembers user preferences

1 year (persistent)

The community will not remember the user’s setting preferences

lithium.anonymous.
usersetting.profile.
language

3

Remembers language preferences

1 year (persistent)

The community will not remember the user’s language preferences. The language will default to the native language defined for the community.

lithiumLogin:{community id}

3

Keeps users logged in when they make a request after their session has expired. It is triggered when a user checks Save login name and password. The cookie is encrypted and includes a unique user secure ID in the database.

30 days (persistent)

The "auto login" and "remember me" features will not work

LithiumNotifications

3

Temporarily stores Realtime Notification messages (Toast messages)

session

Realtime notification toasts may not appear (pop-up) after a page transition.

LithiumUserInfo

1

Session management

session

The user will not be able to view secure pages and will be redirected to the login page

LithiumUserSecure

1 Secure Session management session The user will not be able to view secure pages and will be redirected to the login page.
LithiumVisitor

1

Replaces VISITOR_BEACON. Khoros currently uses both for backward compatibility. This cookie computes billing visits, registered billing visits, visits, registered visits, and unique visitors metrics. The cookie is encrypted and stores when it was first issued, when it was last seen by Khoros, an unique visitor ID (which is unique per visitor’s browser).

Configurable (Default = 6 Months)

Note: To change the default value, contact Khoros Support.

Visits and unique visitors metrics will not be accurate. There will be a new billable visit on each new request. Customers on billing visits model will be affected.

P{poll_id}U{user_id}R{reset_count}

3

Tracks when a user has voted in a poll and tracks the answer value. The cookie is used to prevent a user from voting multiple times in a single poll. The cookie is only placed if Use cookies to prevent multiple votes is enabled in Community Admin.

14 days

If the user is an anonymous user, the user will be able to vote multiple times when the cookie is cleared. If the user is logged in, votes, and then clears the cookie, they are not allowed to revote.

PushyAuthToken

1

Authenticates the user for a session with Realtime Notifications service (Pushy)

Manually cleared when the user logs out or when their session expires due to inactivity

WebSocket connections to the Realtime Notification service will fail with a 403 Forbidden error and the user will not see realtime notifications.

VISITOR_BEACON

1

Computes billing visits, registered billing visits, visits, registered visits, and unique visitors metrics. The cookie is encrypted and stores, when it was first issued, when it was last seen by Khoros, the user ID, and its own unique ID.

Configurable (Default = 6 Months)

Note: To change the

default value, contact Khoros Support.

Visits and unique visitors metrics will not be accurate. There will be a new billable visit on each new request. Customers on billing visits model will be affected.

VISITORID

1

Distinguishes between human and bot traffic

3 years (session)

Defeats the bot detection mechanism. (May see increased spam on the community.)

ValueSurveyParticipation

3

Stores a timestamp storing the creation time of this cookie, which is used in value survey trigger logic.

 

Default is 90 days. Configurable in Community Admin

The user will get multiple prompts to take a survey

ValueSurveyVisitorCount

3

Stores the survey visit count of the user, which is used in logic that determines when a survey is triggered. This cookie is used in conjunction with the ValueSurveyParticipation cookie. When the ValueSurveyParticiation is set, the count for ValueSurveyVisitorCount cookie is reset to 0.

Expires when the ValueSurveyParticipation cookie is either set or expires

The user will not be prompted to take a survey until the count defined in the Delay before prompting user with survey field in Community Admin > Features > Value Surveys > Settings is met.

LithiumCookiesAccepted (for Cookie Banner v1)

1

Stores the information of whether the user has given explicit consent by clicking "Accept" on the cookie banner to store Type 2, Type 3 & Type 4 cookies.

For Cookie Banner v1, this cookie stores:

-'1' if the user has explicitly clicked "Accept" in the cookie banner.

-'2' if user clicked "Reject".

 

Configurable (Default = 6 months). This cookie is not session specific (persistent) and will be maintained across sessions.

This cookie is not dropped if OOTB cookie banner is disabled. If the banner is enabled and this cookie is explicitly removed from the browser, the cookie banner will appear again and Type 2, Type 3 & Type 4 cookies will not be stored unless the user clicks “Accept” again.

LithiumNecessaryCookiesAccepted (for Cookie Banner v2 and Aurora)

1

Stores the information of whether the user has given explicit consent by clicking "Accept", "Reject" or "Confirmed" their choices from options under "Preferences" on the cookie banner to store Type 1 cookies.

For Cookie Banner v2 this cookie stores:

-'0' when the OOTB cookie banner for the site is enabled and user has not explicitly clicked "Accept" or "Reject" or "Confirmed" their choices from "Preferences".

- For Classic: '0' when the OOTB cookie banner for the site is enabled and user clicked "Reject".

- For Aurora: "1" when the OOTB cookie banner for the site is enabled and user clicked "Reject".

-'1' if the user has explicitly clicked "Accept" or "Confirmed" their choices from "Preferences".

Irrespective of the value, Type 1 cookies are always stored in the browser. 

Configurable (Default = 6 months). This cookie is not session specific (persistent) and will be maintained across sessions.

This cookie is not dropped if OOTB cookie banner is disabled. If the banner is enabled, removing or deleting this cookie from the browser will not impact any Type 1 cookies that are stored in the browser.

LithiumFunctionalCookiesAccepted (for Cookie Banner v2)

1

 

Stores the information of whether the user has given explicit consent by clicking "Accept", "Reject" or "Confirmed" their choices from options under "Preferences" on the cookie banner to store Type 3 cookies.

For Cookie Banner v2 this cookie stores:

-'0' when the OOTB cookie banner for the site is enabled and user has not explicitly clicked "Accept" or "Reject" or "Confirmed" their choices from "Preferences".

-'1' if the user has explicitly clicked "Accept" in the cookie banner or "Confirmed" their choices from "Preferences".

-'2' if user clicked "Reject".

 

Configurable (Default = 6 months). This cookie is not session specific (persistent) and will be maintained across sessions.

This cookie is not dropped if OOTB cookie banner is disabled. If the banner is enabled and this cookie is removed from the browser, then new Type 3 cookies will not be stored in the browser.

LithiumTargetingCookiesAccepted (for Cookie Banner v2)

1

Stores the information of whether the user has given explicit consent by clicking "Accept", "Reject" or "Confirmed" their choices from options under "Preferences" on the cookie banner to store Type 4 cookies.

For Cookie Banner v2 this cookie stores:

-'0' when the OOTB cookie banner for the site is enabled and user has not explicitly clicked "Accept" or "Reject" or "Confirmed" their choices from "Preferences".

-'1' if the user has explicitly clicked "Accept" in the cookie banner or "Confirmed" their choices from "Preferences".

-'2' if user clicked "Reject".

Configurable (Default = 6 months). This cookie is not session specific (persistent) and will be maintained across sessions.

This cookie is not dropped if OOTB cookie banner is disabled. If the banner is enabled and this cookie is removed from the browser, then new Type 4 cookies will not be stored in the browser.

LithiumPerformanceCookiesAccepted (for Cookie Banner v2)

1

Stores the information of whether the user has given explicit consent by clicking "Accept", "Reject" or "Confirmed" their choices from options under "Preferences" on the cookie banner to store Type 2 cookies.

For Cookie Banner v2 this cookie stores:

-'0' when the OOTB cookie banner for the site is enabled and user has not explicitly clicked "Accept" or "Reject" or "Confirmed" their choices from "Preferences".
-'1' if the user has explicitly clicked "Accept" in the cookie banner or "Confirmed" their choices from "Preferences".
-'2' if user clicked "Reject".

Configurable (Default = 6 months). This cookie is not session specific (persistent) and will be maintained across sessions.

This cookie is not dropped if OOTB cookie banner is disabled. If the banner is enabled and this cookie is removed from the browser, then new Type 2 cookies will not be stored in the browser.

_pendo_meta.*

4

Cookie is used by Communities to show in-app feature guides in the "Community Admin" section

Persistent

None

_pendo_accountId.*

4

Cookie is used by Communities to show in-app feature guides in the "Community Admin" section

Persistent

None

_pendo_visitorId.*

 

4

Cookie is used by Communities to show in-app feature guides in the "Community Admin" section

Persistent

None

mPulse

2

mPulse enables real-time performance monitoring and analysis of the community and helps improve over...

7 days

The mPulse tools and dashboards from within Akamai will no longer contain the relevant real user measurement data.

kh-local-storage (for Aurora only)

3

 
Introduced in Aurora 23.5/23.6 when it was discovered that Android apps need to have local storage enabled to embed a community via WebView. If local storage is not enabled, the app falls back to using this cookie for local storage instead. 

Session

Mobile Android apps that embed a community using WebView and do not have local storage enabled will fail to render pages.

LithiumImpersonatedUser (for Aurora only)

3

 
Keeps reference of the user being impersonated when the Switch Member feature is enabled.

30 minutes

Switch Member feature would not work as cookie is used to identify the impersonated user.

kh-sso

1

 
When the bounce URL is set in the SSO properties, the user is redirected to said URL if it’s not authenticated. In order to avoid a redirection loop, this cookie is set to mark that the user has already been redirected once.

Session

If the bounce URL is set in the SSO properties, the user may enter a redirection loop and be unable to access the community.

LithiumUserExternalVideoConsent

1

Remembers users' preferences to consent to cookies originating from external video providers

180 days / 6 months

Users are asked to consent to cookies originating from external video providers

LithiumLocalePreferences (For Classic and Aurora communities)

 

3

 
Used to keep track of the user’s preferred language

24 hours

Increase in number of calls to verify user language preference. Language preference order may be altered or may default to browser selected preference.

For Aurora - 

If this cookie is not present, a query will be executed to retrieve the language. If the user does not have a value in their preferences, we will use the browser's `Accept-Language` header.

LithiumToggleTextKeys

3

 
Used to enable toggle text key functionality in end-user app. 

24 hours

 

Toggle text keys functionality would not show on end-user app and therefore could not be used.

LithiumLocalizedCategoryLocalePreference(Aurora only)

3

 
Used to keep track of the users selected language in the language selector when Localized Community is enabled in Aurora.

24 hours

Users selected language from the language selector will not persist. Language preference will shift back to the language retrieved from the users browser `Accept-Language` header.

csrf-aurora

1

Cross-site request protection

Session

Users cannot use the product

Community Analytics Cookies

Cookie Name

Type

Description and Purpose

Expiration Time/Type

If removed, disabled, or not accepted

SIP|ws

3

Tracks the workspace to redirect to after a session timeout

1 day

 

All Khoros Community cookies also apply to Community Analytics

 

Khoros Care cookies

Cookie Name

Type

Description and Purpose

Expiration Time/Type

If removed, disabled, or not accepted

X-TOKEN-ID

1

Protects against cross-site scripting

Session

This is a security token. It is critical for the application to run

PLAY_SESSION

1

This is the main session cookie

Session

This is the main session cookie. It is critical for the application to run

__sdx_page

3

Stores the user’s current application tab

14 days

When a user reloads the page, the user is redirected to the default tab instead of to the last tab used in the application

PLAY_LANG

3

Retrieves the user’s language

14 days

This is used only when LSW cannot detect the browser language and a user has no language set

 

Khoros Care Analytics Cookies

Cookie Name

Type

Description and Purpose

Expiration Time/Type

If removed, disabled, or not accepted

XSessionID

1

This is the main session cookie

24 hours

This is the main session cookie. It is critical for the application to run

JSESSIONID

3

This is an auto-generated JSP cookie

Session

The application does not rely on this cookie but uses the cookie occasionally to auto-generate UUIDs

 

Care Publisher Cookies

Cookie Name

Type

Description and Purpose

Expiration Time/Type

If removed, disabled, or not accepted

TOCOMA-CID 1 The user’s main session cookie Expires when the browser session ends

The application will not run

 

Khoros Marketing Cookies

In addition to the _ga cookie used by Khoros Communities (see the “Khoros Communities cookies” chart above), Khoros Marketing also uses the following cookies:

Note: Khoros Experiences customers can set additional cookies on websites where they publish visualizations created by the Khoros product, in addition to the standard cookies disclosed below. These cookies are set by social networks when a user signed in to the social network visits the website.

Description and Purpose Cookie Name Type

Expiration
Time/Type

Consequence if removed, disabled, or not accepted
sf-ui.login.spredfast.com 3 - Functional Expanded user auth info Persistent None
sfauth-login.spredfast.com 1 - Strictly necessary User Auth Info 12 hours Users cannot use the products
sfjwt-login.spredfast.com 1 - Strictly necessary User Auth Info 12 hours Users cannot use the products
sfcsrf-login.spredfast.com 1 - Strictly necessary Cross-site request protection 12 hours Users cannot use the products
sfsig-login.spredfast.com 1 - Strictly necessary User Auth Info signature 12 hours Users cannot use the products
_ga 2- Functional Google Analytics - Used to distinguish users. 2 years None
_gid 2- Functional Google Analytics - Used to distinguish users. 24 hours None
_gat 2- Functional Google Analytics - Used to throttle request rate. If Google Analytics is deployed via Google Tag Manager, this cookie will be named _dc_gtm_<property-id>. 1 minute None
_pendo_accountId.* 4 - Tracking, targeting and sharing Cookie is used by marketing software for user analytics Persistent None
_pendo_meta.* 4 - Tracking, targeting and sharing Cookie is used by marketing software for user analytics Persistent None
_pendo_visitorId.* 4 - Tracking, targeting and sharing Cookie is used by marketing software for user analytics Persistent None
PHPSESSID 1 - Strictly necessary Only contain a reference to a session stored on the web server. No information is stored in the user's browser and this cookie can only be used by the current web site. Session Users cannot use the product
csrf_token 1 - Strictly necessary Cross-site request protection Session Users cannot use the product
campaignTab 3 - Functional Used to track and restore last tab in Initiative Settings Session None
_tweetriver_session 1 - Strictly necessary Only contain a reference to a session stored on the web server. No information is stored in the user's browser and this cookie can only be used by the current web site. 24 hours Users cannot use the product
_tweetriver_session 1 - Strictly necessary Only contain a reference to a session stored on the web server. No information is stored in the user's browser and this cookie can only be used by the current web site. 24 hours Users cannot use the product
mr_inst_token 3 - Functional Allows users to like an Instagram status from Vizzes Session Users cannot like an Instagram status from Vizzes
mr_pauth_t 1 - Strictly necessary Redirects the user after photo share Session User will not be redirected after sharing a photo
poll-user-id 3 - Functional Tracks a random user id for submitting to a poll (so repeat votes can be tracked). Session Duplicate poll votes cannot be tracked.
redirectToOldModeration 3 - Functional Redirects the user to old stream moderation tool Session May be deprecated or non-functioning at this time

Customer and Third-Party Cookies on Khoros Communities

Khoros customers may set additional cookies on Khoros Community in addition to the standard cookies disclosed above. These cookies are set and controlled by Khoros customers and their affiliates for various purposes such as website usage tracking (very common practice) and targeting for surveys or advertising in some cases. Khoros does not control the dissemination of such cookies. If you need more information on which additional cookies are set on the Community you are visiting, visit the community’s privacy section. You may also wish to review the How to control cookies section to view, remove, or block certain cookies. Note that disabling or removing cookies may have an adverse impact on the proper functioning of the community, and certain features may become disabled or unavailable.

Cookies Set by Third-Party and External Sites

Communities may contain embedded images, videos, and links to external and third-party websites. Khoros customers may also include syndicated content on their communities such as banner ads and similar embedded objects from their affiliates and partners. As a result, when you click on such an object you may be presented with cookies from the owner of that respective website where the content is hosted. Khoros does not control the dissemination of such cookies. Contact the relevant third party website for their privacy policy and cookie information. Note that disabling or removing cookies may have an adverse impact on the proper functioning of the community, and certain features may become disabled or unavailable.

Khoros Bot Cookies

Khoros recently acquired Flow.ai which provides Intent Detection and Suggested Responses in Enterprise Architecture and uses the following cookies in the provided cookie bar when accepted by the website visitor:

Cookie Name

Location

Description

Type

Cloudfire

Dashboard

The cookie is used by CloudFare to identify individual clients behind a shared IP address and apply security settings on a per-client basis. It does not correspond to any user ID in the web application and does not store any personally identifiable information.

Strictly necessary

Google Analytics

Dashboard

The cookie is used by Google analytics to calculate visitor, session, campaign data, user interaction with the website and keep track of site usage for the site''s analytics report. The cookies store information anonymously and assign a randomly generated number to identify unique visitors.

Performance

Stripe

Dashboard

This cookie is used to enable payment on the website without storing any payment information on a server.

Strictly necessary

 

Atlas Cookies

In addition to the AWSALBCO, AWSALB, _ga, LiSESSIONID, LithiumVisitor and VISITOR_BEACON cookies used by Khoros Communities (see the “Khoros Communities cookies” chart above) Khoros Atlas Community also uses the following cookies:

Cookie Name

Type

Description and Purpose

Expiration Time/Type

__cfduid Necessary The cookie is used by cdn services like CloudFare to identify individual clients behind a shared IP address and apply security settings on a per-client basis. It does not correspond to any user ID in the web application and does not store any personally identifiable information. 1 month
_hjFirstSeen Analytics This is set by Hotjar to identify a new user’s first session. It stores a true/false value, indicating whether this was the first time Hotjar saw this user. It is used by Recording filters to identify new user sessions. 30 minutes
_gat_UA-134360776-2 Other No description 1 minute
_gat_UA-134360776-3 Other No description 1 minute
_hjTLDTest Other No description session
_hjid Other This cookie is set by Hotjar. This cookie is set when the customer first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the random user ID, unique to that site on the browser. This ensures that behavior in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID. 1 year
Munchkin Javascript Tracking API 4 Tracking of end-user page visits. Tracking of clicks to specific landing pages and external web pages. 720 days, and we're currently supporting Do Not Track functionality

Contact Khoros

  • For Privacy related requests email privacy [at] khoros [dot] com. Use a secure communication method such as PGP or SMIME for sharing sensitive information.
  • Find Khoros' Privacy Policy.
  • For Security related requests email security [at] khoros [dot] com. Use a secure communication method such as PGP or SMIME for sharing sensitive information.
  • Read about our Security Testing and Reporting Policy.
  • For sales related and general inquiries, contact your designated Account Manager or visit our website.
Updated 2 hours ago
Version 87.0

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