Cookie Policy

Effective Date: January 1, 2020

AvalonBay Communities, Inc., its subsidiaries and related entities ("Avalon," "we," "our" or "us") respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your information.

When you visit the Web Site, we automatically collect certain information about your activities ("Web Site Usage Information"). We use the information we collect to enhance your visit to the Web Site and to provide you with information tailored to your needs.

Web Site Usage Information is information about how our visitors use and navigate the Web Site. This includes, for example, the number and frequency of visitors to each web page, the length of their stays, the type of browser each visitor is using to view the Web Site (for example, Internet Explorer, Firefox), the type of operating system each visitor is using, (for example, WindowsOS, Mac OS), the domain name of each visitor's Internet service provider, the location data such as the visitor’s IP address, the address (or "URL") of the web site that the visitor came from before visiting the Web Site, which pages were visited on the Web Site, what was clicked on, and certain other available information. An IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer whenever you access the Internet, which our web servers use to identify where to send the information your computer requests. When you request pages from the Web Site, our servers log your IP address as well as information about your activities on those pages. To collect this Web Site Usage Information, the Web Site and any e-mails sent to you by the Web Site (or otherwise by AvalonBay Communities, Inc.) may utilize cookies, web beacons, embedded scripts or similar technologies.

A cookie is a small data file sent to your browser when you visit the Web Site, and stored on your computer. Cookies automatically identify your web browser to the Web Site whenever you visit the Web Site, and may make navigating and using the Web Site easier for you. Also, by tracking how and when you use the Web Site, cookies help us determine which areas are popular and which are not. Additionally, accepting cookies may allow you to, among other things, personalize and enhance your experience on the Web Site. If you do not wish to allow for use of cookies, you can generally opt-out of providing this information by setting your browser to reject cookies. However, please be aware that some areas of the Web Site may not provide you with an acceptable user experience if you have disabled the use of cookies.

A web beacon is a small, often invisible, graphic element included in a web page or e-mail. It allows the party that set the web beacon to monitor and collect certain limited information about the viewer of the web page or e-mail message (such as the type of browser downloading the web beacon, the IP address of the computer that the web beacon is sent to and the time the web beacon was viewed, as well as the URL of the page the web beacon comes from). We may use web beacons for many purposes, such as to count visitors to the Web Site, or to monitor how visitors navigate the Web Site, and we may include web beacons or similar technologies in e-mails in order to count how many e-mails (or particular articles, links, etc.) we sent were actually opened.

An embedded script is programming code that is designed to collect information about your interactions with the Web Site. It is temporarily downloaded onto your computer from our Web server or a third party we work with, is active only while you are connected to the Web Site, and is deleted thereafter.

Web Site Usage Information is frequently anonymous information, since it is not normally associated with you or your identity. It may be used for a number of purposes, such as system administration, to help us understand the demographics of the visitors to the Web Site, to enhance the performance and usefulness of the Web Site, to report aggregate information to our business partners, or to audit use of the Web Site. If Web Site Usage Information is combined with your Personal Information in a manner that it is directly associated with your identity, then it will be treated as Personal Information under this Privacy Policy.

Types of cookies and tags on our Web site

We use these kinds of cookies and tags on our Web site and App:

Cookie Type What These Cookies Do
Essential cookies These cookies are essential for parts of our Web site to operate. They enable users to move around our Web site and allow us to recognize a user within our Web site so that we can provide users with the service they asked for, such as remembering the user's sign-in details.

A preference cookie is required to maintain a record of your Do Not Track preferences, so that we may respect them for future visits.
Functionality cookies These cookies help us customize our Web site content based on a user's preferences. They remember the user's choices, pages visited, and any changes the user makes. The information these cookies collect may be anonymized and they cannot track browsing activity on other Web sites.
Performance cookies, such as those used for Google Analytics or Microsoft Application Insights These cookies collect information on how users use our Web site, in order to help us fix technical issues or errors, and highlight areas such as navigation where we can improve our Web site. For example, Google Analytics uses cookie identifiers to track the number of visitors to the Web site, providing us with the volumes and sources of Web page traffic. This allows us to analyze Web traffic patterns and run tests to optimize Web pages and visits against key metrics. The information collected by Google Analytics itself is anonymous. You can find more information about how Google Analytics safeguards your data at: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-US
Targeting cookies, such as those used by advertising platforms we may use, such as Facebook We may use other cookies to target and re-target visitors to our Web site with digital advertising that is most relevant to the user. These cookies are also used to limit the number of times you see an advertisement or particular content, as well as help measure the effectiveness of an advertising or marketing campaign. We may partner with third party companies to deliver advertising to specific computers.

For more information about digital advertising visit AdChoices at: https://www.youradchoices.com.
Social media cookies We allow users to share our Web site on social media such as Facebook and Twitter through the use of their cookies. These cookies are not within our control. Please refer to the respective privacy policies of the social media provider for how their cookies work.