What are cookies?
Cookies are ‘local storage files’ and are used to help websites function and enhance a users experience as well as in some cases collect data about a visitor’s activity on a website. By themselves web pages cannot hold and pass information easily. Cookies help overcome this. They are small text files that are created on a visitor’s computer to store information that aids the running of the website. Cookies come in many guises including:
- Session: Any first-party cookie with no expiry time, or more specifically any first-party cookie set to expire when the web browser is closed. First-party cookies are those with a domain name that matches the domain or any sub domain(s) of the actual site being analysed. Often this is essential data storage such as a user being able to login to the website account and move around the website whilst being kept logged in or being able to add items to their basket and consequently pay and complete a transaction. These cookies are temporary and when a browser is closed then they are removed.
- Persistent Cookies: Any first-party cookie with a fixed expiry time in the future. Used for ‘Remember Me’ and functionality that work between browser sessions. Services such as Google Analytics will use cookies to record page hits, referrals and track a visitor’s activity on a particular website.
- Third-party: Any third-party cookie regardless of expiry time. Third-party cookies are those with a domain name that differs completely from the domain of the actual site being analysed. These cookies can also be used by social networking websites such as Facebook or Twitter. If social bookmarking links are used on a website then Facebook and Twitter will use cookie to enhance a visitor’s interaction with these services. Google Analytics is also considered a third-party cookie.
You can view a list of all the cookies we use on this website and their purpose, and update your cookie preferences here: Change Cookie Preferences
Tracking Cookies
To allow us to better understand the kind of people who visit the website and what content they’re viewing. This allows us to make better decisions about the content we publish. Occasionally, we will compile aggregate statistics about the number of visitors this site receives, and browsers being used. No personally identifying data is included in this type of reporting.
Google Analytics
The following activity falls within the bounds of the Google Analytics Terms of Service and the Google Tag Manager Terms of Service.