‘Cookies’ are small text files that are stored by the browser (e.g. Internet Explorer or Safari) on your computer or mobile phone. They allow websites to store such things as user preferences. You can think of cookies as providing a “memory” for the website, enabling it to recognise a user and respond appropriately.
Every time a user visits our website, web analytics software provided by a third party generates an anonymous analytics cookie.
These cookies can tell us whether or not you have visited the site before.
Your browser will tell us if you have these cookies, and if you don’t, we generate new ones.
This allows us to track how many individual unique users we have, and how often they visit the site.
Unless you are signed in, these cookies cannot be used to identify individuals; they are used for statistical purposes only. If you are logged in, we will also know the details you gave to us for this, such as username and email address.
Third parties may also set their own anonymous cookies, for the purposes of tracking the success of their application, or customising the application for you. Because of how cookies work, we cannot access these cookies, nor can the third parties access the data in cookies used by us.
For example, when you share a news article using a social media sharing button on our website, the social network that has created the button will record that you have done this.
It is usually possible to stop your browser accepting cookies, or to stop it accepting cookies from a particular website. For example, we cannot tell if you are signed in without using cookies, so you would not be able to place orders.
All modern browsers allow you to change your cookie settings. These settings will typically be found in the ‘options’ or ‘preferences’ menu of your browser. In order to understand these setttings, the following links may be helpful, otherwise you should use the ‘Help’ option in your browser for more details.
Cookie settings in Internet Explorer Cookie settings in Firefox Cookie settings in Chrome Cookie settings in Safari
If you are primarily concerned about third party cookies generated by advertisers, you can turn these off by going to the Your Online Choices site.
You can also visit the trade body representing these advertising platforms for more information: Network Advertising Initative.
They have provided a one-stop place that gathers all of the opt-out controls. http://networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp
If you would like to find out more about cookies and their use on the Internet, you may find the following links useful:
Microsoft Cookies guide All About Cookies
The IAB has provided the following website to give information specifically about privacy issues around Internet advertising: youronlinechoices.co.uk/uk
For further legal information about privacy issues, you may find these links useful:
Data Protection Act 1998 The Information Commissioner’s Office