Cookie
A cookie is a simple text file that is stored on your computer, mobile phone or any other internet enabled device (“device”) by a web server. Each cookie is unique to your web browser. It will contain some anonymous information such as a unique identifier and the site name and some digits. It allows a website to remember things like your preferences or what’s in your shopping basket.
Most websites you visit will use cookies in order to improve your user experience by enabling that website to ‘remember’ you, either for the duration of your visit (using a ‘session cookie’) or for repeat visits (using a ‘persistent cookie’). Cookies do lots of different jobs, like letting you navigate between pages efficiently, storing your preferences, and generally improving your experience of a website. Cookies make the interaction between you and the website faster and easier.
If a website doesn’t use cookies, it will think you are a new visitor every time you move to a new page on the site. Some websites will also use cookies to enable them to target their advertising or marketing messages based for example, on your location and/or browsing habits. We may collect information about your computer, including your IP address, operating system and browser type, for system administration and in order to create reports. This is statistical data about our users’ browsing actions and patterns, and does not identify any individual.Cookies may be set by the website you are visiting (‘first party cookies’) or they may be set by other websites who run content on the page you are viewing (‘third party cookies’).
What to do if you don’t want cookies to be set
Some people find the idea of a website storing information on their computer or mobile device a bit intrusive, particularly when this information is stored and used by a third party without them knowing. Although this is generally quite harmless you may not for example, want to see advertising that has been targeted to your interests. If you prefer, it is possible to block some or all cookies, or even to delete cookies that have already been set; but you need to be aware that you might lose some functions of that website. Click on the link at the bottom of the page to set your cookie permissions.
