COOKIES POLICY

WHAT IS A COOKIE?

  • Cookies are text files containing small amounts of information that are downloaded to your device when you visit a website. Cookies are then sent back to the originating website on each subsequent visit, or to another website that recognises that cookie. Cookies are useful because they allow a website to recognise a user’s device.
  • Cookies help us to improve our site and to deliver a better and more personalised service, for instance by storing information about your preferences and allowing us to recognise you when you return to our site. You may refuse to accept cookies by activating settings on your internet browser. However, please note that if you select such settings certain parts of our site may not work properly.
  • The information we collect may include IP addresses, browser version, number of visits, which pages you access and your viewing preferences. 

USE OF PIXELS AND WEB BEACONS

  • Some of our web pages may contain pixels which is code embedded into web pages and electronic images known as web beacons, among other things, that allow us to count users who have visited these pages. 
  • Pixels and web beacons may collect limited information including a cookie number, time and date of a page view, and a description of the page on which the web page resides. 

HOW WE USE COOKIES

We use cookies for a variety of reasons detailed below:

  • Required cookies: These are required for the functionality of the platform. For example, we use cookies when you are logged in which prevents you from having to log in every single time you visit a new page. These cookies are typically removed or cleared when you log out.
  • Security cookies: These help us secure the platform or deal with spam or other unauthorised activities.
  • Analytical cookies: These allow us to maintain and monitor the platform for number of visitors, the pages they are visiting and their movements across the platform. 
  • Functional cookies: These enable us to remember you if you have chosen to be remembered at login and in some cases personalise your experience.
  • Personalisation cookies: Where this site offers newsletter or email subscription services cookies may be used to remember if you are already registered and whether to show certain notifications which might only be valid to subscribed/unsubscribed users. We may use surveys to provide you with interesting insights, helpful tools, or to understand our user base more accurately. These may use cookies to remember who has already taken part in a survey or to provide you with accurate results.
  • Advertising cookies: These are set by our third party advertising services. See below.

THIRD PARTY COOKIES

We use trusted third party service providers to provide adverts who may also use cookies. Third party cookies are covered by their own privacy policies including:

  • Google Analytics: This site uses Google Analytics which helps us to understand how you use the site and ways that we can improve your experience. These cookies may track things such as how long you spend on the site and the pages that you visit so we can continue to produce engaging content.
We do not collect data for display and search marketing or advertising reporting features. Our data retention period is set to the minimum of 14 months. 
  • Google Adsense: We use Google AdSense to serve advertising. Google and its partners use advertising cookies to enable them to serve ads based on a user’s previous visits to the platform or other websites.

  •  Sortable (Ad Services) : We use Sortable who act as a programmatic exchange to serve advertising via third party ad networks. They may make use of cookies and similar technologies to serve, tracks and target ads. 

CONSENT TO COOKIES

  • In order to place cookies on your device, we require your consent. If you don’t want to receive cookies at all, you can modify your browser so that it notifies you when cookies are sent to it or you can refuse cookies altogether.
  • Please note that if you continue to browse the site, you will be considered to have agreed to our use of cookies.
  • You can withdraw your consent to our use of cookies at any time. If you wish to restrict or block web browser cookies that have been set on your device, then you can do this through your browser settings; the Help function within your browser should tell you how. You can also use your browser settings to delete cookies that have already been set.
  • Alternatively, you may wish to visit www.aboutcookies.org, which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of desktop browsers. However, please note that if you select such settings you may be unable to access certain parts of our site or certain content or functionality may not be available.
  • If you’d like to opt out of other third party cookies relating to behavioural advertising, please go to www.youronlinechoices.eu. Opting out does not mean you will no longer receive online advertising. It does mean that the company or companies from which you opted out will no longer deliver ads tailored to your web preferences and usage patterns.