The Cheesecake Factory

Effective Date: January 1, 2020

This cookie policy (“Cookie Policy”) explains what cookies are and how The Cheesecake Factory Incorporated and its parents, subsidiaries, and affiliated entities (“The Cheesecake Factory,” “the Company,” “we”, “us” or “our”) use cookies and similar tracking technologies when you visit our website or any other websites, pages, features, mobile applications, or content that we own or operate (collectively, the “Site”). We encourage you to read the full policy so that you can understand what information is collected using cookies and how we use that information.

This Cookie Policy is part of, and is governed by, the terms and conditions set forth in our Terms of Use. You should also familiarize yourself with our Privacy Policy. By accessing or using our Site, you accept the data practices and terms detailed in our Cookie Policy.

If you do not agree with this Cookie Policy, please discontinue your access or use of the Site immediately. This Cookie Policy does not apply to services offered by other companies or other sites linked to from our Site. If you have questions regarding our Cookie Policy, please contact us as described in the “Contact Us” section below.

We may update this Cookie Policy from time to time and make changes to information previously collected, as permitted by law. If we make material changes, we will post the updated Cookie Policy on this page with a “Last Updated” effective date of the revisions. We encourage you to look for updates and changes to this Cookie Policy by checking this date when you access our Site.

What are cookies?

We may use cookies, embedded scripts, software development kits (“SDKs”) and other similar tracking technologies (collectively, “Tracking Technologies”) to collect additional personal information automatically as you interact with our Site and to personalize your experience with our Site. We also may use these technologies to collect information about your online activities over time and across third-party websites or other online services.

Cookies are small web files that a site or its provider transfers to your device’s hard drive through your web browser that enables the site’s or provider’s system to recognize your browser and remember certain information. Cookies set by us are called “first party cookies,” while cookies set by parties other than The Cheesecake Factory are called “third-party cookies.” The parties that set third-party cookies can recognize your web browser both when it visits our Site and when it visits certain other websites or mobile applications.

The length of time a cookie will stay on your browsing device depends on whether it is a “persistent” or “session” cookie. Session cookies will only stay on your device until you stop browsing. Persistent cookies stay on your browsing device until they expire or are deleted. We may place cookies from third-party service providers who may use information about your visits to other websites to target advertisements for products and services available from us. We do not control the types of information collected and stored by these third-party cookies. You should check the third party’s website for more information on how they use cookies.

Types of cookies on our site

The following types of cookies are used on our Site:

Strictly Necessary Cookies. These cookies are essential because they enable you to use our Site. For example, strictly necessary cookies allow you to access secure areas on our Site. Without these cookies, some Site cannot be provided. These cookies do not gather information about you for marketing purposes. This category of cookies is essential for our Site to work and they cannot be disabled.
Functional or Preference Cookies. We use functional cookies to remember your choices so we can tailor our Site to provide you with enhanced features and personalized content. For example, these cookies can be used to remember your name or preferences on our Site. We do not use functional cookies to target you with online marketing. While these cookies can be disabled, this may result in less functionality during your use of our Site.
Performance or Analytic Cookies. These cookies collect passive information about how you use our Site, including webpages you visit and links you click. We use the information collected by such cookies to improve and optimize our Site. We do not use these cookies to target you with online marketing. You can disable these cookies.
Advertising or Targeting Cookies. These cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you. They perform functions like preventing the same ad from continuously reappearing, ensuring that ads are properly displayed for advertisers, and in some cases selecting advertisements that are based on your interests. Our third-party advertising partners may use these cookies to build a profile of your interests and deliver relevant advertising on other sites. You may disable the use of these cookies as set forth below.

We may also use other Tracking Technologies to collect “clickstream” data, such as the domain name of the service providing you with Internet access, your device type, IP address used to connect your computer to the Internet, your browser type and version, operating system and platform, the average time spent on our Site, webpages viewed, content searched for, access times and other relevant statistics, and assign unique identifiers to the device or other credentials you use to access the Site for the same purposes.

Pages of our Site and our emails may contain small electronic files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags and single-pixel gifs) that permit us, for example, to count users who have visited those pages or opened an email and for other related website statistics (for example, recording the popularity of certain website content and verifying system and server integrity). Pages of our Site may also contain social media widgets, which are buttons or icons provided by third-party social media providers that allow you to interact with those social media services when you view a web page or mobile app screen. These social media widgets may collect browsing data, which may be received by the third party that provided the widget, and are controlled by the third parties.

Within our mobile applications, we use third-party software development kits that are embedded in the apps. These app SDKs permit the collection of information about the app itself, activity within the app, and the device the application is running on.

Pages of our Site may also use Java scripts, which are code snippets embedded in various parts of websites and applications that facilitate a variety of operations including accelerating the refresh speed of certain functionality or monitoring usage of various online components; entity tags, which are HTTP code mechanisms that allow portions of websites to be stored or “cached” within your browser to accelerate website performance; and HTML5 local storage, which allows data from websites to be stored or “cached” within your browser to store and retrieve data in HTML5 pages when the website is revisited.

How we use cookies on our site

We use first-party and third-party cookies for the following purposes:

To make our Site function properly;
To improve our Site;
To make login to our Site easier (such as by remembering your User ID);
To recognize you when you return to our Site;
To track your interaction with the Site;
To enhance your experience with the Site;
To remember information you have already provided;
To collect information about your activities over time and across third-party websites or other online services in order to deliver content and advertising tailored to your interests; and
To provide a secure browsing experience during your use of our Site.

Cookies used on our site

We may use the following cookies on our Site:

Cookie Name: _ga
Stored by (with Privacy Policy link):Google
Type: Performance or Analytical
Expiration: 2 years
Description: Registers a unique ID that is used to generate statistical data on how the visitor uses the website.
Cookie Name: _gat
Stored by (with Privacy Policy link):Google
Type: Performance or Analytical
Expiration: 1 day
Description: Used by Google Analytics to throttle request rate.
Cookie Name: _gid
Stored by (with Privacy Policy link):Google
Type: Performance or Analytical
Expiration: 1 day
Description: Registers a unique ID that is used to generate statistical data on how the visitor uses the website.
Cookie Name: _fbp
Stored by (with Privacy Policy link):Facebook
Type: Advertising
Expiration: 3 months
Description: Used by Facebook to deliver a series of advertisement products such as real-time bidding from third-party advertisers.
Cookie Name: fr
Stored by (with Privacy Policy link):Facebook
Type: Advertising
Expiration: 3 months
Description: Used by Facebook to deliver a series of advertisement products such as real-time bidding from third-party advertisers.
Cookie Name: IDE
Stored by (with Privacy Policy link):Google
Type: Advertising
Expiration: 1 year
Description: Used by Google Doubleclick to register and report the website user’s actions after viewing or clicking an advertisement with the purpose of measuring the effectiveness of the ad and to present targeted advertisements.
Cookie Name: pagead/1p-conversion
Stored by (with Privacy Policy link):Google
Type: Advertising
Expiration: Session
Description: A pixel used by Google to send data to Google Analytics about the visitor’s device and behavior.
Cookie Name: r/collect
Stored by (with Privacy Policy link): Google
Type: Advertising
Expiration: Session
Description: A pixel used by Google to send data to Google Analytics about the visitor’s device and behavior.
Cookie Name: tr
Stored by (with Privacy Policy link): Facebook
Type: Advertising
Expiration: Session
Description: A pixel used by Facebook to deliver a series of advertisement products such as real-time bidding from third-party advertisers.

Your choices

Your browser may provide you with the option to refuse some or all browser cookies. You may also be able to remove cookies from your browser. You can exercise your preferences in relation to cookies served on our Site by taking the steps outlined below. In addition, most web browsers provide help pages relating to setting cookie preferences. More information may be found for the following browsers here:

First-Party Cookies. As noted immediately above, you can use the browser with which you are viewing this Site to enable, disable or delete cookies. To do this, follow the instructions provided by your browser (usually located within the “Help”, “Tools” or “Edit” settings). Please note, if you set your browser to disable cookies, you may not be able to access secure areas of the Site. Also, if you disable cookies other parts of the Site may not work properly. You can find more information about how to change your browser cookie settings at allaboutcookies.org.

Third-Party Cookies. To opt-out of third-party advertising networks and similar entities that use advertising cookies go to aboutads.info/choices. Once you click the link you may choose to opt-out of such advertising from all participating advertising companies or only advertising provided by specific advertising entities. For more information about third-party advertising networks and similar entities that use these technologies, please see aboutads.info/consumers, or opt-out of interest-based targeting provided by participating ad services through the Digital Advertising Alliance (“DAA”) (optout.aboutads.info) or the Network Advertising Initiative (optout.networkadvertising.org).

Mobile Applications. On your iPhone, iPad or Android mobile device, you can change your device settings to control whether you see online interest-based ads, including by setting your device to “limit ad tracking,” or you may download the DAA’s AppChoices tool (youradchoices.com/appchoices) to control interest-based advertising on apps on your mobile device.

Flash Cookies. Certain features of our Site may use local stored objects (or Flash cookies) to collect and store information about your preferences and navigation to, from and on our Site. If you do not want Flash Cookies stored on your computer, you can adjust the settings of your Flash player to block Flash Cookies storage. Flash cookies are not managed by the same browser settings as are used for browser cookies, but may be managed here: macromedia.com/support/documentation.

Do Not Track

Some Internet browsers, such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari, include the ability to transmit “Do Not Track” or “DNT” signals. Since uniform standards for “DNT" signals have not been adopted, our Site does not currently process or respond to “DNT” signals.

Contact us

We welcome your questions, comments, and concerns about privacy. You can contact us by calling 1-866-458-2951 or writing us at:

Attn: Privacy Officer
The Cheesecake Factory Incorporated
26901 Malibu Hills Road, Calabasas Hills, CA 91301
privacyofficer@thecheesecakefactory.com