The Microbiome Throughout Life Community

Cookie Policy

Last updated: 27 July 2026

This page explains which cookies and similar technologies are used on mbtl-community.com, what they do, and how you can control them. You can change your choices at any time using the Cookie settings link in the site footer.

What cookies are

Cookies are small text files a website stores in your browser. Some are needed for the site to work at all — for example to keep you logged in. Others are optional and help us understand how the community uses the site, or allow content hosted by other companies (such as video) to be shown here.

We ask for your permission before our own analytics runs. Until you give it, no visitor statistics are collected. Video players embedded from other companies are the one exception — see section 3 below.

1. Strictly necessary — always on

These make the site function and cannot be switched off. They do not track you across other websites.

  • WordPress session and login cookies (wordpress_*, wordpress_logged_in_*, wp-settings-*) — keep you signed in and remember interface preferences. Session, or up to 1 year.
  • Membership cookies (Paid Member Subscriptions, pms_*) — identify your membership level so member-only content is shown correctly. Session.
  • Security and anti-spam (Really Simple Security, WP Armour) — protect login and form submissions from automated abuse. Session.
  • Caching (LiteSpeed Cache) — helps pages load quickly and correctly for logged-in and logged-out visitors. Session.
  • Cloudflare (__cf_bm, cf_clearance) — our content delivery and security provider uses these to tell human visitors apart from bots. Up to 30 minutes / 1 year.
  • Your cookie choices (mbtl_consent) — remembers what you agreed to on this banner, so we do not ask again on every page. 6 months.

2. Analytics — off until you agree

These help us see which pages, webinars and articles are useful, so we can improve the community. They are only loaded after you accept.

  • Visitor Traffic Real Time Statistics — a self-hosted visitor counter running on our own server. It records page views together with your IP address, referring page and browser type. Data stays on our server and is not sold or shared.
  • Google Analytics (_ga, _ga_*) — if and when we enable it, it measures aggregate site usage. Up to 2 years. Google acts as a separate data controller for the data it receives.

3. Embedded media — loads with the page

Webinar recordings, expert interviews, video and podcast episodes are hosted by third parties and are embedded directly in our pages. We have chosen to let this content load straight away, so you are never asked to click through a placeholder before you can watch or listen. That means the provider below can see your IP address and may set its own cookies as soon as a page containing one of their players opens, before you have answered the cookie banner.

  • YouTube / Google — used for most video content. We load it in YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode (youtube-nocookie.com), which limits but does not entirely remove tracking.
  • Vimeo — used for some recordings.
  • Google Drive — conference recordings and expert interviews are streamed from our own Google Drive. Google can see your IP address and set cookies when such a player loads.

Each of these companies is a separate data controller for what it collects through its player. If you would rather not be exposed to them, you can block third-party cookies in your browser, use a content blocker, or watch the content on the provider’s own site.

Changing or withdrawing your choice

Use the Cookie settings link in the footer of any page to review or change your choices. Withdrawing consent is as easy as giving it, and takes effect immediately.

You can also delete or block cookies in your browser settings. Note that blocking strictly necessary cookies will stop parts of the site — including login and member content — from working.

Questions

If you have any question about this policy or about how your data is handled, write to [email protected].