Policy
Cookies
This site sets six things on your device. Three are needed for it to work; two count page views and credit a referral; one is an advertising cookie from TikTok, set on every visit. That last one is the only thing here that follows you off this site. Here is the complete list, and how to refuse it.
Last updated 10 October 20265 min read
What we use
Five cookies of our own and one entry in your browser's local storage, plus one advertising cookie from TikTok. We run no tag manager, no chat widget, no embedded video and no social plug-ins. Fonts are served from our own domain. The TikTok pixel is the only third-party script on this site, and it is on every page, including checkout.
Two of ours are not strictly necessary, and they are listed as functional rather than hidden among the rest. afa_vid lets us see how many people are on the site, which pages they open and what is in the carts currently open; afa_ref credits a referral partner if you arrived through one. Neither is shared with anybody and neither follows you off this site.
The TikTok pixel is different in kind, and we would rather you heard it plainly than found it in a table. It loads on every page for every visitor, and it is there so that we can tell whether our advertising brings anybody here. TikTok can connect your visit to an advertisement you saw, and to your activity on other sites carrying the same pixel. It is told which products you look at, what you add to the cart and what you order — never your name, your email or your address. We sell nothing we collect. If you would rather it did not run, the last section says how to stop it.
The full list
| Name | Type | Set by | Purpose | Lasts | Category |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| afa_ack | Cookie | AFA Biosciences | Records that you have confirmed the researcher-access notice shown when you arrive. The notice asks you to confirm two statements and collects no other information; this cookie holds the date and time you confirmed, and nothing else. | 15 days, or until you sign out | Necessary |
| bus_session | Cookie | AFA Biosciences | Keeps you signed in to your account after you use a sign-in link. Holds a random identifier only. | 15 days, or until you sign out | Necessary |
| google_oauth_state | Cookie | AFA Biosciences | Protects the staff-only support-mailbox connection against cross-site request forgery. Set only while a member of staff links a mailbox; never on customer pages. | 10 minutes | Necessary |
| afabiosciences.cart.v1 | Local storage | AFA Biosciences | Remembers what is in your cart between visits, so it is still there when you come back on this device. | Until you empty the cart or clear site data | Necessary |
| afa_vid | Cookie | AFA Biosciences | A random identifier, so we can count how many people are on the site, see which pages get opened and what is in the carts currently open. It is tied to the pages you open here and when you opened them, to the contents of your cart, to the site that linked you here if any, and to the approximate area — town, region and country — that our content delivery network works out from your connection before it reaches us, and to whether you are using an iPhone or iPad, an Android device or a computer. It is not tied to your IP address, your browser fingerprint, or anywhere you go off this site; nothing finer than a town is recorded and no coordinates; your browser's own description of itself is read only to tell those three kinds of device apart and is not kept; and we record nothing you type, no clicks and no mouse movement. The record of pages opened is deleted after 90 days. It carries no name or email of its own; if you sign in or check out, your cart is matched to your account so that we can email you about a cart you left behind, and that email always carries a one-click unsubscribe. | 180 days | Functional |
| afa_ref | Cookie | AFA Biosciences | Set only if you arrive through a referral partner's link, so their referral is credited if you order. Holds that partner's handle and nothing else. | 30 days | Functional |
| _ttp | Cookie | TikTok | Set on every visit. TikTok uses it to tell whether somebody who saw one of our advertisements later came here and ordered, so that we can see which advertising is worth paying for. It is a third party's cookie, TikTok can read it on other sites carrying the same pixel, and it is the one thing on this site that follows you off it. It records the pages you open here, what you add to the cart and what you order — never your name, your email or your address. | Set by TikTok — see their cookie policy | Advertising |
Third-party cookies
Two: TikTok's advertising pixel and Google's Google Ads tag, both set on every visit unless you have opted out at Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, in which case neither is loaded at all. A third Google script, the Customer Reviews opt-in, runs on the order confirmation screen alone — only for card orders delivered inside the United States, only to ask whether Google may email you a survey about that order, and not at all if you have opted out. It is described in the Privacy Policy. Those three are the only third parties with any presence here. If card payment is offered at checkout, the payment processor named there may also set cookies within its own payment form, for fraud prevention and to complete the payment, and this page will list them. Our email provider and our shipping carriers set nothing on this site.
Necessary, functional and advertising
Four are necessary for something you have asked for: staying signed in, keeping your cart, and remembering that you have confirmed the research-use notice. Without them the thing you are doing does not work.
Two are not. afa_vid is a random identifier that lets us count how many people are on the site, see which pages get opened and in what order, see what is in the carts currently open, and see which site a visit arrived from and roughly what part of the world it came from; afa_ref credits a referral partner if you arrived through one. Both are first-party and neither is shared with anyone, but counting page views and attributing a referral are not things you asked us to do, and we do not describe them as necessary. They are listed as functional in the table above, and clearing them is covered below.
One is advertising. Until 5 October 2026 everything this site set was its own, and this page said so. TikTok's pixel is the exception, it runs for everybody, and we are not going to describe it as anything other than what it is: a third party watching what you do here so that we can measure our advertising. It is not needed for anything you came to do — every page, the cart and checkout work identically without it, which is why the next section tells you how to turn it off rather than burying that.
How to clear them
Signing out removes the session cookie and the research-use confirmation together, so the notice is shown again the next time you sign in. Emptying the cart clears the cart entry. Your browser's “clear site data” option for afabiosciences.com removes everything at once. Both cookies expire on their own after 15 days in any case. Blocking all cookies in your browser will stop you signing in or paying.
To stop the TikTok pixel. The direct way is Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information: one click, effective on this browser immediately, and the pixel is then never loaded rather than loaded and silenced. We also honour Global Privacy Control automatically, so if your browser sends it you need do nothing. Beyond that it is a third-party script, so the ordinary tools work on it and we are not going to pretend otherwise: block third-party cookies for this site, or use a tracker blocker, or turn on “Do Not Track” style protection in your browser — Safari and Firefox block it by default. Everything on this site keeps working. TikTok's own advertising controls are in your TikTok account settings, and you can write to us at any time to ask what we hold and have it deleted.
More on what we collect and why is in the Privacy Policy. Questions: support@afabiosciences.com.