Cookie Policy
We use cookies and similar tools across our website to improve its performance and enhance your user experience. This policy explains how we do that.
What are cookies?
Cookies are small text files which a website may put on your computer or mobile device when you first visit a site or page. The cookie will help the website, or another website, to recognise your device the next time you visit. Web beacons or other similar files can also do the same thing. We use the term “cookies” in this policy to refer to all files that collect information in this way.
There are many functions cookies serve. For example, they can help us to remember your username and preferences, analyse how well our website is performing, or even allow us to recommend content we believe will be most relevant to you.
Certain cookies contain personal information – for example, if you click to “remember me” when logging in, a cookie will store your username. Most cookies won’t collect information that identifies you, and will instead collect more general information such as how users arrive at and use our websites, or a user’s general location.
What sort of cookies does we use?
Generally, our cookies perform up to four different functions:
1. Essential cookies
Some cookies are essential for the operation of our website. For example, some cookies allow us to identify customers and ensure they can access any customer-only pages. If a customer opts to disable these cookies, they will not be able to access all of the content they wish to.
2. Performance Cookies
We utilise other cookies to analyse how our visitors use our websites and to monitor website performance. This allows us to provide a high quality experience by customising our offering and quickly identifying and fixing any issues that arise. For example, we might use performance cookies to keep track of which pages are most popular, which method of linking between pages is most effective, and to determine why some pages are receiving error messages. We might also use these cookies to highlight articles or site services that we think will be of interest to you based on your usage of the website.
3. Functionality Cookies
We use functionality cookies to allow us to remember your preferences. For example, cookies save you the trouble of typing in your username every time you access the site, and recall your customisation preferences, such as which regional edition of the website you want to see when you log in.
Can a website user block cookies?
The first time you accessed our website after 22 May 2012, you should have seen an overlay which explained that by continuing to access our site, you are consenting to our use of cookies. Please remember that if you do choose to disable cookies, you may find that certain sections of our website do not work properly.
More detail on how businesses use cookies is available at www.allaboutcookies.org.