Cookies
Further to a new EU law introduced in May 2012, we would like to advise you of the cookies which will be used whilst you browse our website.
What are cookies?
Cookies are small files of letters and numbers. These files are either stored in the memory of your computer or other devices such as mobile phones or tablet devices (these cookies are generally known as session cookies) or are placed on the hard drive of your device (generally known as persistent cookies).
Cookies are created when you visit a website that uses cookies. Cookies are commonly used by websites to help the user’s browsing experience and provide more information about the user’s experience and interests. This information is generally used to make content, services and advertising more relevant and useful during future visits.
For more details about cookies and details of how to delete and disable cookies you can visit www.aboutcookies.org and also see our section on more information and turning cookies off below.
We’ve described the cookies below using the categories recommended by the International Chamber of Commerce in the ICC UK Cookie Guide. Some cookies can appear in more than one category.
- Category 1: strictly necessary cookies
These cookies are essential in order to enable you to move around the website and use its features, such as accessing secure areas of the website. Without these cookies services you have asked for, like shopping baskets or e-billing, cannot be provided.
- Category 2: performance cookies
These cookies collect information about how visitors use a website, for instance which pages visitors go to most often, and if they get error messages from web pages. These cookies don’t collect information that identifies a visitor. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. It is only used to improve how a website works. - Category 3: functionality cookies
These cookies allow the website to remember choices you make (such as your user name, language or the region you are in) and provide enhanced, more personal features. For instance, a website may be able to provide you with local weather reports or traffic news by storing region details within a cookie. These cookies can also be used to remember changes you have made to text size, fonts and other parts of web pages that you can customise. They may also be used to provide services you have asked for such as watching a video or commenting on a blog. The information these cookies collect may be anonymised and they cannot track your browsing activity on other websites. - Category 4: targeting cookies or advertising cookies
These cookies are used to deliver adverts more relevant to you and your interests. They are also used to limit the number of times you see an advertisement as well as help measure the effectiveness of the advertising campaign. They are usually placed by advertising networks with the website operator’s permission. They remember that you have visited a website and this information is shared with other organisations such as advertisers. Quite often targeting or advertising cookies will be linked to site functionality provided by the other organisation.
Cookies that are strictly necessary
CraftSessionId
Session Identifier. Used to determine if a user is logged in (for commenting and for admin privileges) Used to store guest information so on next load of a guest reply form the guest user information that the user entered previously is already pre filled Used for request validation to help secure forms. Expires: end of session
Cookies for Performance
We use Google Analytics, which creates a number of first-party cookies:
- __utma
This cookie helps us determine the number of unique visitors to our website. - __utmb
This cookie helps us determine the referral method for people visiting our website. This helps us to analyse the traffic arriving at our website and to determine which are the most popular routes (e.g. direct, search engine search, email link). - __utmc
We use this Google Analytics cookie to help us to record the length of individual sessions from our users on our website. Each time you move to a new page within our website within 30 minutes of arriving the cookie updates so that we know that you are still actively using our website within a single session. - __utmz
Similar to _utmb, we use this Google Analytics cookie to help us record the length of individual sessions on our website.
Full details of the cookies which Google Analytics uses can be found in Cookies & Google Analytics in documentation for Google's Analytics tracking code. You can also read Google's Privacy Policy for Google Analytics.
We don't share the data that Google Analytics collects, and we don't believe that our use of Google Analytics intrudes on your privacy. 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; and
- to inform how we update and improve our website.
To opt out of our use of Google Analytics you may wish to consider using the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.
Cookies for targeting/advertising
YouTube sets a number of cookies. Google provides more information about these (the "we" here is Google):
These cookies help make advertising more engaging to users and more valuable to publishers and advertisers.
For example, these cookies can be used to select advertising based on what’s relevant to a user, to improve reporting on campaign performance, and to avoid showing ads a user has already seen.
We use cookies like ‘NID’ and ‘SID’ to help customize ads on Google properties, like Google Search. For example, we use such cookies to remember your most recent searches, your previous interactions with an advertiser’s ads or search results, and your visits to an advertiser’s website. This helps us show you customized ads on Google.
We also use one or more cookies for advertising we serve across the web. One of the main advertising cookies on non-Google sites is named ‘IDE‘ and is stored in browsers under the domain doubleclick.net. Another is stored in google.com and is called ‘ANID’. We use other cookies with names such as ‘DSID’, ‘FLC’, ‘AID’, ‘TAID’, and ‘exchange_uid’. Other Google properties, like YouTube, may also use these cookies to show you more relevant ads.
Sometimes advertising cookies may be set on the domain of the site you’re visiting. For advertising we serve across the web, cookies named ‘__gads’ or ‘__gac’ may be set on the domain of the site you’re visiting. Unlike cookies that are set on Google’s own domains, these cookies can’t be read by Google when you’re on a site other than the one on which they were set. They serve purposes such as measuring interactions with the ads on that domain and preventing the same ads from being shown to you too many times.
Google also uses conversion cookies, for example, cookies named ‘__gcl’, whose main purpose is to help advertisers determine how many times people who click on their ads end up taking an action on their site, like making a purchase. These cookies allow Google and the advertiser to determine that you clicked the ad and later visited the advertiser’s site. Conversion cookies are not used by Google for personalized ad targeting and persist for a limited time only. Some of our other cookies may be used to measure conversion events as well. For example, Google Marketing Platform and Google Analytics cookies may also be used for this purpose.
We also use cookies named ‘AID’, ‘DSID’, and ‘TAID’, which are used to link your activity across devices if you’ve previously signed in to your Google Account on another device. We do this to coordinate the ads you see across devices and measure conversion events. These cookies may be set on the domains google.com/ads, google.com/ads/measurement, or googleadservices.com.
If you don’t want the ads you see to be coordinated across your devices, you can opt out of Ad Personalization using Google's Ad Settings.
Disabling cookies
Most internet browsers are automatically set up to accept cookies, but you can set your browser to refuse a cookie or ask your browser to show you where a cookie has been set up. Certain Services are only activated by the presence of a cookie and, if you choose to refuse cookies, particular features of the Website or Services may not be available to you.
Find out how to disable/enable cookies by clicking on the "Manage Cookies" section of the Interactive Advertising Bureau website on the following link: allaboutcookies.org