Cookies

What are cookies?

Cookies and similar tracking technologies, such as tags, scripts and beacons, are small pieces of code (referred to as cookies hereafter) that are stored on a device (computer, mobile phone, tablet etc) and enable a website to “personalise” itself to users by remembering information about the user’s visit to the website. We also use cookies within emails we may send.

Cookies are used to collect information, where available, about your device, your IP address, operating system and browser type and how you have interacted with our websites.

While cookies are used to identify users and devices, they only ever collect non-personal information such as IP addresses, device IDs. If the data cookies collect are ever merged with any other information with which you have provided us, such as email addresses, these are anonymised in such a way that identification to actual people is impossible.

Why do we use them?

Our websites use cookies to:

  • Store any preferences you have made and display content to you in a more personalised way
  • Evaluate our websites’ advertising and promotional effectiveness
  • Gain insight into the nature of our audience so we can tailor our content accordingly

We will always make sure our websites contain clear and easy to find information about our cookies.

What types of cookies do we use?

  • Per-session cookies – We only use these while you are visiting our website and they are deleted when you leave. They remember you as you move between pages, for example recording the items you add to an online shopping basket. They also help maintain security.
  • Persistent cookies – These cookies stay on your computer until they expire or are deleted. We set automatic deletion dates so that we don’t keep your information for longer than we need to.
  • First and third-party cookies – Whether a cookie is ‘first’ or ‘third’ party refers to the website or domain placing the cookie. First party cookies in basic terms are cookies set by a website visited by the user – the website displayed in the URL window. Third party cookies are cookies that are set by a domain other than the one being visited by the user. If a user visits a website and a separate company sets a cookie through that website this would be a third-party cookie.

Google Analytics, Google AdSense, DoubleClick

Google (www.google.com) operates the Google Display Network: a collection of millions of websites and mobile applications that are powered by display advertising, including many Google services like YouTube. Google also operates the DoubleClick digital advertising platform: the ad technology foundation to create, transact, and manage digital advertising for the world’s buyers, creators, and sellers. The DoubleClick platform includes the DoubleClick Advertising Exchange and Double Click Bid Manager. To learn more about how Google collect and use information for online advertising, please click here.