Cookies and web beacons

What are cookies?

A cookie is a text file containing a small amount of information that is sent to your browser when you visit a website.  The cookie is then sent back to the originating website on each subsequent visit, or to another website that recognises it. Cookies are an extremely useful technology and do lots of different jobs.

A Web beacon is an often-transparent graphic image, usually no larger than 1 pixel x 1 pixel, that is placed on a website or in an email that is used to monitor the behaviour of the user visiting the website or sending the email. It is often used in combination with cookies.

We may collect information through the use of cookies, web beacons or similar analytics-driven technologies.

What cookies do we use?

The cookies that we use fall into the following categories:

• Strictly necessary cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our website.

• Analytical/performance cookies. They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.

• Functionality cookies. These are used to recognise you when you return to our website. This enables us to personalise our content for you, greet you by name and remember your preferences.

• Targeting cookies. These cookies record your visit to our website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make our website and the advertising displayed on it more relevant to your interests. We may also share this information with third parties for this purpose.

We use various types of cookies (including some that we place and others which we permit third parties to place on our site) for a number of purposes. The information collected by cookies allows us to monitor how many people are using our services and their interactions with other services, how many people open our e-mails, and for what purposes these actions are being taken. Cookies are also used to facilitate a user’s log-in, as navigation aids, and as session timers, and to restrict underage use of our tools and services. We also use cookies to match information to third-party databases to create marketing profiles that could result in you seeing customized advertising or content when browsing the internet. We do not link non-personal information from cookies to personally identifiable information without permission. If for any reason you do not want us to track your use of our site using cookies, you can opt out of this using your browser settings and can also select the option “Do Not Track” (for more information please refer to your browser). Most browsers offer instructions on how to reset the browser to reject cookies in the “Help” section of the toolbar.

We use web beacons to collect information about the use of our services. The information collected by web beacons allows us to monitor how many people are using our services, how many people open our e-mails, and determine for what purposes these actions are being taken. Our web beacons are not used to track activity outside of our services.

How do I change my cookie settings?

Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set, visit www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org.

To find out how to manage cookies on popular browsers:

• Google Chrome
• Microsoft Edge
• Mozilla Firefox
• Microsoft Internet Explorer
• Opera
• Apple Safari

To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites, visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Important information about cookies

Please note that third parties (including, for example, advertising networks and providers of external services like web traffic analysis services) may also use cookies, over which we have no control. These cookies are likely to be analytical/performance cookies or targeting cookies.

You block cookies by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of all or some cookies. However, if you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies) you may not be able to access all or parts of our site.