Twitter’s use of cookies and similar technologies

Twitter uses cookies and other similar technologies, such as pixels or local storage, to help provide you with a better, faster, and safer experience. Here are some of the ways that the Twitter services—including our various websites, SMS, APIs, email notifications, applications, buttons, widgets, and ads—use these technologies: to log you into Twitter, save your preferences, personalize the content you see, protect against spam and abuse, and show you more relevant ads.

Below we explain how Twitter, our partners, and other third parties use these technologies, your privacy settings and the other options you have.

What are cookies, pixels, and local storage?

Cookies are small files that websites place on your computer as you browse the web. Like many websites, Twitter uses cookies to discover how people are using our services and to make them work better.

A pixel is a small amount of code on a web page or in an email notification. As many services do, we use pixels to learn whether you’ve interacted with certain web or email content. This helps us measure and improve our services and personalize your experience on Twitter.

Local storage is an industry-standard technology that allows a website or application to store information locally on your computer or mobile device. We use local storage to customize what we show you based on your past interactions with Twitter.

Why does Twitter use these technologies?

Twitter uses these technologies to deliver, measure, and improve our services in various ways. These uses generally fall into one of the following categories:

• Authentication and security:
  • To log you into Twitter
  • To protect your security
  • To help us detect and fight spam, abuse, and other activities that violate the Twitter Rules

For example, these technologies help authenticate your access to Twitter and prevent unauthorized parties from accessing your account. They also let us show you appropriate content through our services.

• Preferences:
  • To remember information about your browser and your preferences

For example, cookies help us remember your preferred language or country that you are in. We can then provide you with Twitter content in your preferred language without having to ask you each time you visit Twitter. We can also customize content based on your country, such as showing you what topics are trending near you, or to withhold certain content based on applicable local laws. Learn more about Trends and country withheld content.

• Analytics and research:
  • To help us improve and understand how people use our services, including Twitter buttons and widgets, and Twitter Ads

For example, cookies help us test different versions of our services to see which particular features or content users prefer. We might also optimize and improve your experience on Twitter by using cookies to see how you interact with our services, such as when and how often you use them and what links you click on. We may use Google Analytics to assist us with this. Learn more about the cookies you may encounter through our use of Google Analytics. We might also use cookies to count the number of users that have seen a particular embedded Tweet or timeline. Learn more about the analytics cookies used by Twitter for Websites widgets.

• Personalized content:
  • To customize our services with more relevant content, like tailored trends, stories, ads, and suggestions for people to follow

For example, local storage tells us which parts of your Twitter timeline you have viewed already so that we can show you the appropriate new content. Cookies can help us make smarter and more relevant suggestions about who you might enjoy following based on your visits to websites that have integrated Twitter buttons or widgets. Learn more below about tailored suggestions and your privacy controls, which include your Twitter account settings and Do Not Track browser setting.

• Advertising:
  • To help us deliver ads, measure their performance, and make them more relevant to you based on criteria like your activity on Twitter and visits to our ad partners' websites

For example, Twitter uses cookies and pixels to tailor ads and measure their performance. Using these technologies, we can show you ads and evaluate their effectiveness based on your visits to our ad partners' websites. This helps advertisers provide high-quality ads and content that might be more interesting to you. Learn more below about Twitter’s tailored ads and your privacy controls, which include your Twitter account settings, Do Not Track browser setting, and the interest-based advertising opt-out choices of Twitter's ad partners at www.aboutads.info/choices and www.networkadvertising.org/choices.

Where are these technologies used?

Twitter and third parties use these technologies on Twitter’s websites, applications, and services and on other websites, applications, and services that have integrated Twitter’s services, including third-party properties that incorporate Twitter’s advertising technology. This includes our ad partners’ websites and sites that use Twitter buttons or widgets, like our Tweet or follow buttons. Third parties may also use these technologies, for example, when you click on links from Twitter websites or applications, view or interact with third-party content from within our services, or visit third-party websites that incorporate Twitter’s advertising technology.

What are my privacy options?

We are committed to offering you meaningful privacy choices. You have a number of options to control or limit how Twitter, our partners, and other third parties use cookies:

• For tailoring suggestions on Twitter: If you do not want Twitter to tailor suggestions for you based on your recent visits to websites that have integrated Twitter buttons or widgets, you can turn off this feature using your Twitter account settings or Do Not Track browser setting. Learn more here.
• For tailoring ads on Twitter: If you do not want Twitter to tailor ads based on information that our ad partners provide us (like the browser cookie ID or email hash), there are several ways to turn off this feature:
• Use your Twitter account settings to control whether Twitter will match your account to information shared by ad partners to tailor ads for you.
• To change your settings on twitter.com, visit the Security and privacy settings tab and adjust the setting “Tailor ads based on information shared by ad partners.”
• To change your settings on Twitter for iOS, from the Me tab, tap the gear icon , select Settings, tap Privacy and content, and adjust the setting “Tailor ads based on info from ad partners.”
• To change your settings on Twitter for Android, tap the overflow icon  in the upper right, select Settings, select Privacy and content, tap “Tailor ads based on info from ad partners,” and adjust the setting on the resulting screen.
• Turn on the Do Not Track setting in your web browser so that Twitter does not match your account to browser-related information to tailor ads for you.
• Enable the “Limit Ad Tracking” setting (on iOS devices) or the setting to “Opt out of Interest-Based Ads” (on Android), so that Twitter does not tailor ads for you by matching your device to app information from ad partners.
• Twitter works with its affiliate TellApart and third-party advertising partners, including Google, to market our services on our behalf and serve ads on behalf of Twitter customers, including through the delivery of interest-based ads. You can learn more about opting out of receiving interest-based ads at www.aboutads.info/choices and www.networkadvertising.org/choices and from TellApart’s FAQs. You can also opt out of Google Analytics by installing Google’s opt-out browser add-on, and out of interest-based Google ads using Google’s Ads Settings.
• For using cookies: You can modify your settings in most web browsers to accept or deny cookies, or to request your permission each time a site attempts to set a cookie. Although cookies are not required for some parts of our services, Twitter may not work properly if you disable cookies entirely. For example, you cannot log into twitter.com if you've disabled all cookie use.