Cookies are small text files which are transferred from our website, product or service and stored on your computer’s hard drive.
How We Use Cookies
We use a combination of cookies to help us provide you with a personalised service, and also to help make our websites, products and services better for you. We use the following different types of cookies:
- Session Cookies – These are temporary cookies which are deleted when you close your browser or leave your session in the product or service. We use session cookies on our websites and in some of our products or services to identify and track users. Our session cookies may also contain your customer account number, company name and email address. We may also use session cookies and similar technologies in our products or services from time to time where this enables us to offer you certain features of the product or service or where it may help us to improve the product or service.
- Persistent Cookies – Persistent cookies enable our websites, product or service to “remember” who you are and to remember your preferences on our website. Persistent cookies will stay on your computer or device after you close your browser or leave your session in the product or service.
- Web analytics cookies and similar technologies – Our websites, products and services use web analytics cookies. These cookies allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and see how they move around the website, product or service. This helps us make our service to you better.
- Web beacons and parameter tracking – We also use cookies and similar software known as web beacons to count users who have visited our website after clicking through from one of our advertisements on another website or in emails and to collect details of any products purchased. These web beacons collect limited information which does not identify particular individuals. It is not possible to refuse the use of web beacons. However, because they are used in conjunction with cookies, you can effectively disable them by setting your browser to restrict or block cookies. We keep a record of traffic data which is logged automatically by our server, such as your Internet Protocol (IP) address, the website that you visited before ours, the website you visit after leaving our site.
We also collect some site, product and service statistics such as access rates, page hits and page views. We are not able to identify any individual from traffic data or site statistics.
How to disable cookies
You may be able to configure your browser to restrict cookies or block all cookies if you wish, however if you disable cookies you may find this affects your ability to use certain parts of our website, products or services.
Software, products and services
Our software, products or services may also include technology that enables us to:
- Check specific information directly relevant to your use of the software or products contained in your computer against our records to make sure the software or products are being used in accordance with our software licence agreements and to troubleshoot any problems;
- Collect information about how you and your authorised users use the functions of the features of our software or products; and
- Gather statistical information about the operating system and environment on which our software or products are installed.
What do we use cookies for?
The cookies that we use on our websites can be split into the following categories:
- Strictly necessary cookies: These are cookies which are needed for our websites, products and services to function properly, for example, these cookies allow you to access secure areas of our website or to use the shopping basket facility.
- Functional Cookies: These cookies allow our websites, products and services to remember choices you make (such as your user name, language or the region you are in) and provide enhanced, more personal features. 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. The information these cookies collect may be anonymised and they cannot track your browsing activity on other websites.
- Performance cookies : These cookies collect information about how visitors use our website, products and services, 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 our website, products and services work. We use Google Analytics which uses “cookies” to help the website analyse how users use the site. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website (including your IP address) may be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser, however please note that if you do this you may not be able to use the full functionality of this website. By using this website, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner and for the purposes set out above. You can find out more about this service at http://www.google.com/analytics.