Cookie Policy

Cookies are files containing small amounts of information which are downloaded to the device you use when you visit a website.

A cookie will typically contain the name of the domain from which the cookie has come, the “lifetime” of the cookie, and a value, usually a randomly generated unique number. When you visit our website we send you a cookie.

Cookies are then sent back to the originating website on each subsequent visit, or to another website that recognises that cookie. Cookies do lots of different and useful jobs, such as remembering your preferences, and generally improving your online experience.

Cookies may be used in the following ways:

• to help us recognise you as a unique visitor (this is just a number, as opposed to personally identifiable data) when you return to our website and to allow us to tailor content or advertisements to match your preferred interests or to avoid showing you the same adverts repeatedly; or

to compile anonymous, aggregated statistics (again, containing no personally identifiable data) that allow us to understand how users use our site and to help us improve the structure of our website.

Two types of Cookies may be used on our website:

• “session cookies”, which are temporary cookies that remain in the cookie file of your browser until you leave the site; and
• “persistent cookies”, which remain in the cookie file of your browser for much longer (though how long will depend on the lifetime of the specific cookie).

Use of web beacons

Some of our website pages may contain electronic images known as web beacons (sometimes known as clear gifs) that allow us to count users who have visited these pages. Web beacons collect only limited information including a cookie number, time and date of a page view, and a description of the page on which the web beacon resides.

We may also carry web beacons placed by third party advertisers. These web beacons do not carry any personally identifiable information and are only used to track the effectiveness of a particular campaign.

Because web beacons are the same as any other content request included in the recipe for a web page, you cannot opt-out or refuse them. However, where they are used in conjunction with cookies they can be rendered ineffective by either opting out of cookies or by changing the cookie setting on your browser (see below).

Third party advertising

We may use a third party to serve advertisements on our website. Cookies may be associated with these advertisements to enable the advertiser to track the number of anonymous users responding to the campaign. We do not have access to or control of cookies placed by third parties.

Disabling/enabling cookies

You have the ability to accept or decline cookies by modifying the settings in your browser. However, you may not be able to use all the interactive features of our site if cookies are disabled.

There are a number of ways to manage cookies. If you use various devices in different locations you will need to ensure that each browser is adjusted to suit your cookie preferences. Some modern browsers have a feature that will analyse website privacy policies and allow a user to control their privacy needs. These are known as “P3P” features (Privacy Preferences Platform). You can easily delete any cookies that have been installed in the cookie folder of your browser. For example, if you are using Microsoft Windows Explorer:

Open ‘Windows Explorer’ Click on the ‘Search’ button on the tool bar Type “cookie” into the search box for ‘Folders and Files’ Select ‘My Computer’ in the ‘Look In’ box Click ‘Search Now’ Double click on the folders that are found ‘Select’ any cookie file Hit the ‘Delete’ button on your keyboard.

If you are not using Microsoft Windows Explorer, then you should select “cookies” in the “Help” function for information on where to find your cookie folder.