Cookies policy
General info
A cookie is a small piece of data stored in your web browser while you are browsing our website. When you browse our website again in the future, the data stored in the cookie can be retrieved to notify us of your previous activity. Our cookies don’t store personal information such as your name or your address. We use cookies to enhance the functionality of the website by storing your preferences, for example. We also use cookies to improve the performance of our website in order to provide you with a better user experience.
Manage: If you wish to control which cookies are set on your device throughout the website, then you can find out how to do this in ‘manage cookies manually’.
More info: For further information about cookies and how to manage them visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org.
Which cookies do we use?
Our site stores information in cookies about the current session, its name starts with the word SESS and ends with a random string. The state of popup elements is stored in a cookie named cocoCafBannerClosed which has the language code at the end. If the user accepts our cookie policy, this piece of information is stored in another cookie, cocoCookieAcceptedNotif, that also has an ending of the current language code.
Analytics: We use Google Analytics, which creates a number of first-party cookies, all prefixed __utm:
__utma: contains a unique and anonymous identifying ID, which allows us to ensure that subsequent visits to our website are recorded as belonging to the same (unique) visitor. This cookie expires after two years.
__utmb: used to establish and continue a unique user session. Each time you request another page from the website the cookie is updated to expire after 30 minutes.
__utmc: works with __utmb to determine when to create a new session for a website visitor. This is a session cookie and expires when you exit the browser.
__utmz: tracks how you found us and is used to calculate traffic and navigation within the website. It is updated with every new page view and expires after 6 months.
You may also sometimes find a __utmv cookie, which relates to custom reporting segments, a feature which we occasionally use on Google Analytics.
We don’t believe that our use of Google Analytics is privacy-intrusive. We use the data that is collected in the following ways:
- To report, in aggregate, how our visitors find and use our website;
- To understand overall visitor behaviour;
- To inform how we update and improve our website.
We do allow Google to use this data to collate and aggregate benchmarking data, which they provide to us, about similar websites in our industry. To do this Google further anonymises the analytics data by removing all identifiable information about our website, and combines the data with hundreds of other anonymous sites in comparable industries.
To opt out of our use of Google Analytics you may wish to consider using the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.
Manage cookies Manually
Safari: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH5042
Opera: http://www.opera.com/browser/tutorials/security/privacy/
Internet explorer: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows-vista/Block-or-allow-cookies
Chrome: http://support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=95647
Mozilla Firefox: http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enable-and-disable-cookies-website-preferences
Third-party cookies
Which cookies do we use?
In addition to our first-party cookies, you may be served one or more of the following third-party cookies during your visit to our website. You will only be served these cookies if you have indicated that you consent to our use of cookies.
Third party cookies are cookies created by an external service when you use a page on our website. These cookies are specific to the third-party’s domain and accordingly the data held in them can be seen and managed by the third party and not by us. We control whether or not we use the third-party service with our website, and how it is integrated and presented on our website. We do not have control over the cookies themselves.
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We may use Google Maps on our Contact Us page to provide detailed information on how to locate our office. Google Maps stores up to four cookies: khcookie, NID, SNID and PREF. We use Google’s interactive maps because we believe they provide a helpful way for our visitors to identify how best to travel to us. We use the Google Maps tools on the basis that Google adheres to its privacy policy which can be found at http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en-GB/policies/ and its terms of service for Google Maps.
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We may use YouTube to host video content. When you view a web page on our site with an embedded YouTube video, YouTube creates at least three cookies: VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE, use_hitbox, and PREF. In some circumstances you may also find an additional GEO cookie. We use the YouTube service as a convenience for our visitors, and we use it on the basis that Google adheres to its privacy policy – see http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en-GB/policies/ for more information.
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YouTube video: We may periodically use the YouTube service to host video content, and embed YouTube’s player in our web pages to allow you to watch the video without leaving our website. YouTube’s embedded player currently creates and updates two Flash LSO objects from s.ytimg.com. The LSOs are soundData (which appears to store volume setting preferences) and videostats (which appears to store performance-related information). We have no direct control over YouTube’s use of the data stored in this object. For more information, please read YouTube’s privacy policy at http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en-GB/policies/.
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AddThis creates the following cookies during your visit on our website:
- loc: this is a geolocation cookie;
- coyote-2-a0f0083: this is the load balancer cookie;
- bt: a behavior targeting cookie;
- ana_svc: a real-time service cookie;
- phpbb3_* and style_cookie: these are set by our support forum software;
- uid/uit: user id and login time tracking;
- psc: view counter cookie;
- di/dt: date tracking cookies for determining expiration of other cookies;
- ssh/sshs: service share history, used for configuring our preferred services.
Embedded content
We work with carefully selected suppliers who also use cookies on our website. These cookies enable certain features that run in conjunction with partners such as Facebook, Twitter & YouTube to function. We don’t control the setting of some of these cookies; for more information please visit the relevant third-party website.
Facebook on cookies: http://www.facebook.com/help/cookies
Twitter on cookies: https://twitter.com/privacy
Google on privacy and the +1 button: http://support.google.com/plus/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1319578
Sharing tools
The embedded ‘share’ buttons on our web pages enable you to easily share content with your connections through a number of social networks. When you click one of these buttons, a cookie may be set by the service you have chosen to share content through. We do not control the dissemination of these cookies.
Facebook on share buttons: http://www.facebook.com/help/443483272359009/
Twitter on cookies: https://twitter.com/privacy
Google on privacy and the +1 button: http://support.google.com/plus/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1319578