Stuff Cookies Policy and Targeting and Tracking Policy
Wednesday, 6 August 2025
Policy updated August 2025
Every day, Kiwis like you visit our websites, engage with our apps and purchase services from us. We want to help you understand the data that we collect from you and how we use it, and how you can control this information while using our services.
This policy addresses how we manage cookies and similar technology which allow us to understand the behaviour or users browsing our websites. It explains how the technology works, why we use it, and the steps taken to control their use.
It includes explanations of:
when cookies are applied and some of the functions they serve;
the use of interest-based advertising on Stuff, and how this is applied;
the use of third-party cookies and similar technology on our sites;
consumer profiles and targeted advertising;
behavioural advertising;
and a list of key cookies that appear on our website.
Cookies Policy
We may change this Cookies Policy at any time. Any change in this Cookies Policy will become effective when we make the revised Cookies Policy available on or through a Stuff website.
What is a cookie? When you access our website or apps, we may send a 'cookie' (which is a small text file, which often contains a unique ID number) to your browser or device. This enables us to recognise your browser or device as the same user across one or more browsing sessions and across one or more of our sites. Cookies also enable us to:
greet you each time you visit our website, without bothering you with a request to register or log-in.
keep track of products or services you view, so that we can send you news about those products or services.
measure traffic patterns, to determine which areas of our websites have been visited, and to measure transaction patterns in the aggregate. We use this to research our users' habits so that we can improve our online products and services.
log IP addresses (the electronic addresses of computers connected to the internet) to analyse trends, administer the website, track user movements, and gather broad demographic information.
How do we use the information? We generally use this information to report statistics, analyse trends, administer our services, diagnose problems and target and improve the quality of our products and services. To the extent this information does not constitute personal information because it does not identify you or anyone else, the New Zealand Privacy Principles do not apply and we may use this information for any of our business purposes.
Third parties: We may also allow our third party partners to provide audience measurement and analytics services for use to service ads and to track and report on the performance of those advertisements. These entities may use cookies, web beacons, software development kits (SDKs) and other technology to identify the devices used by visitors to our websites, as well as when they visit other online sites and services. Web beacons are used as a tag that records an end user’s visit to a particular web page or viewing of that particular email. It is often used in conjunction with a cookie and provided as part of a third-party tracking service.
You can choose whether to receive cookies or not by changing your web browser settings. If you disable the cookies on your web browser some of the features may not work as intended.
Targeting and Tracking Policy
We collect data about your browsing activity on our network, websites, applications and other services. We may also use non-personal information that we collect about you on our network to identify you on third party websites where we have an arrangement in place to serve ads on those third party websites. We may also collect anonymous internet usage data from third parties.
One of the reasons we collect usage data is to display targeted advertisements or content on our network and also on third party websites. For that purpose, usage data is collected and assigned to one or more predefined categories (for example 'holiday seekers'). If this infers a particular interest, a cookie is placed in your web browser which may determine the type of targeted advertising or content that you receive (see our Cookies Policy above for more information). We target advertisements and content in order to improve your user experience - so that you are served advertisements and content that we believe may be more relevant or useful to you.
To create consumer profiles we also collate anonymous data from other sources across our network, including memberships, surveys or competitions. For a complete explanation of what we might or won’t do with both personalised and anonymised information, refer to our Privacy Policy, and particularly the sections “What data do we collect?”, “How do we use the data that we collect?” and “How do we disclose your personal information?”
Advertisements or content may also be 'targeted' to users based on:
the type of content displayed on a given web page
the geographical location of a user (i.e. identified by an IP address); or
specific searches undertaken by a user.
Other reasons we may collect anonymous usage data include:
to limit the number of times users are served certain ads;
to monitor the performance of advertising campaigns;
to audit, research, and analyse usage in order to maintain and improve our services, and to develop new services; and
to ensure that our ad-serving technologies function properly.
We will not collect usage data or target advertisements based on the following market segments (except where we have your prior written consent): racial or ethnic origin; political opinions; membership of a political association; religious beliefs or affiliations; philosophical beliefs; membership of a professional or trade association; membership of a trade union; sexual preferences or practices; criminal record; health information; or genetic information that is not otherwise health information.
We will not create categories designed to target children under the age of 13 years (however, this does not prevent us from marketing children's products to an adult audience).
Third party cookies: Third party advertisers purchase advertising products from us that enable them to target particular types of users of our network, for advertisements served both on our network and also on third party websites.
In some cases we permit advertisers to embed their own cookies in advertisements subject to our standard advertising terms and conditions. Generally, advertisers will embed cookies in advertisements to monitor the performance of their advertising campaign, but they may also collect anonymous usage data relating to browsing activity on our network.
We do not, however, permit advertisers to use any usage data obtained from our network to target advertisements or content to users off our network. We encourage advertisers to have a privacy policy that outlines their data collection activities and usage. Please refer to such third party privacy policies for more information.
We will not provide any personal information to an advertiser or any other third party without your express consent or in accordance with our Privacy Policy. To the extent that anonymous user data does not constitute personal information, we will deal with that information in the appropriate and relevant way.
Third Party Online Behavioural Advertising: We have worked alongside other leading industry players and industry associations in New Zealand to develop the New Zealand Best Practice Guideline for Online Behavioral Advertising to guide participants who offer Third Party Online Behavioural Advertising ('OBA') and promote consumer control and transparency of how data is collected.
'Third party' or 'third parties', as referred to throughout this policy, means a non-Stuff entity or organisation that is engaged in OBA and collects and uses web viewing behaviour data for the purposes of OBA via our websites.
'Third Party OBA' occurs when browsing behavior off our network is used to deliver behavioural advertisements on our network.
The Guidelines set out self-regulatory principles designed to promote transparency, consumer awareness and consumer choice in relation to the type of advertising consumers receive and to encourage good practice and accountability in businesses that deploy Third Party OBA.
Retention: We will retain your information for the period necessary to fulfil the purposes outlined in this Tracking and Targeting Policy unless a longer retention period is required or allowed by law.
Security: We adhere to industry 'best practice' for the storage of anonymous usage data. Security firewall, data encryption, and authorisation access are used to safeguard data held by us.
Contact us: For more information about this policy, or our tracking and targeting practices, or if you would like to make a complaint to us in connection with this policy, please send an email to privacy@stuff.co.nz.
Key cookies used on our website
Cookie name: everest_g_v2
Description: The cookie is set under eversttech.net domain. The purpose of the cookie is to map clicks to other events on the client's website.
Duration: 2 years
Type: Advertisement
Cookie name: everest_session_v2
Description: This cookie is used to display personalised and relevant ads to the users and measure the efficiency of the ad campaign.
Type: Advertisement
Cookie name: dpm
Description: The cookie is set by demdex.net. This cookie assigns a unique ID to each visiting user that allows third-party advertisers target that users with relevant ads.
Duration: 5 months
Type: Advertisement
Cookie name: s_ppv
Description: The cookie is used to store information about the vertical percentage of the page that has been displayed to the user.
Duration: 30 minutes
Type: Analytics
Cookie name: _ga
Description: This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, campaign data 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.
Duration: 2 years
Type: Analytics
Cookie name: _gid
Description: This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to store information of how visitors use a website and helps in creating an analytics report of how the website is doing. The data collected includes the number visitors, the source where they have come from, and the pages visited in an anonymous form.
Duration: 1 day
Type: Analytics
Cookie name: _parsely_session
Description: This cookie is used to track the behaviour of a user within the current session.
Duration: 30 minutes
Type: Analytics
Cookie name: _parsely_visitor session
Description: This cookie stores an anonymous user identifier to determine whether a visitor has visited before, or if it’s a new visit.
Duration: 1 year
Type: Analytics
Cookie name: IDE
Description: Used by Google DoubleClick and stores information about how the user uses the website and any other advertisement before visiting the website. This is used to present users with ads that are relevant to them according to the user profile.
Duration: 1 year
Type: Advertisement
Cookie name: gdpr_status
Description: These cookies are used to deliver adverts more relevant to you and your interests. They are also used to limit the number of times you see an advertisement as well as help measure the effectiveness of the advertising campaign.
Duration: 6 months
Type: Advertisement and Analytics
Cookie name: _gat_gtag_UA_1056754_1
Description: Google uses this cookie to distinguish users.
Duration: 1 minute
Type: Analytics
Cookie name: __gads
Description: This cookie is set by Google and stored under the name doubleclick.com. This cookie is used to track how many times users see a particular advert which helps in measuring the success of the campaign and calculate the revenue generated by the campaign. These cookies can only be read from the domain that it is set on so it will not track any data while browsing through another sites.
Duration: 2 years
Type: Analytics
Cookie name: EE
Description: This cookie is set by exelator.com. The cookie is used to store information about a user’s visit to the website. The data includes the number of visits, average time spent on the website, and the pages that have been loaded. This information is used to provide the users customised and targeted ads.
Duration: 3months
Type: Advertisement
Cookie name: ud
Description: This cookie is set by exelator.com. The cookie is used to store information about a user’s visit to the website. The data includes the number of visits, average time spent on the website, and the pages that have been loaded. This information is used to provide the users customised and targeted ads.
Duration: 3 months
Type: Analytics