What personal information is collected?
Certain cookies contain personal information – for example, if you click to ‘remember me’ when logging in, a cookie will store your username. Most cookies will not 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 do our websites use?
Generally, our cookies perform up to four different functions:
- Essential cookies
Some cookies are essential for the operation of our website. For example, some cookies allow us to identify subscribers and ensure they can access the subscription only pages. If a subscriber opts to disable these cookies, the user will not be able to access all of the content that a subscription entitles them too.
- 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 website services that we think will be of interest to you based on your usage of the website.
- Functionality cookies
We use functionality cookies to allow us to remember your preferences. For example, cookies save you the trouble of typing your username every time you access one of the websites, and recall your customisation preferences, such as which regional edition of the website you want to see when you log in.
- Behaviourally targeted advertising cookies
We (and our advertisers) use cookies to serve you with advertisements that we believe are relevant to you and your interests.
- Google analytics
Our website uses google analytics, for more information about this, please see Google’s help pages and privacy policy:
Google have developed the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on for the Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js, analytics.js, dc.js).
If you want to opt-out of Google Analytics you can download and install the add-on for your web browser. For more information, click here: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en.
- Google Ads – We use Google Ads to measure the pages that you visit on our website, as well as basic metrics including the number and nature of page URLs viewed. We also measure the amount of time spent on each page. This information is then used to show targeted banner ads to visitors via the Google Display Network and to customize search ads found in Google’s Search Engines Result Page.
- All this information is gathered by Google’s Remarketing Tag and is therefore anonymized and aggregated by Google before we can use it for remarketing purposes.
- Hubspot – We use Hubspot to collect information about the users who are interacting with our website. The information is mapped to the email address that you provide to us, and it helps us to understand how you are navigating the website, such as the pages you visit. This personal data combined with website usage insights allows us to deliver personalised messages that are relevant to you.
- Facebook & Instagram – We use Facebook & Instagram to better understand our customers, and as part of this we use Facebook & Instagram cookies to gather personal information on our website visitors, as well as those who interact with our content on Facebook. This personal information is then stored securely within Facebook and used to provide you with a personalised messaging experience via advertising, insights, and measurements. You can find out more information on Facebook’s cookie policy here. If you do not use the Facebook platform, then you will not have these cookies placed on your device.
- Twitter – We use Twitter to enhance the experience that you, and other visitors, have upon interacting with our website. If you use Twitter and have interacted with our website, you will have Twitter cookies set to your device. We will use these cookies to collect your personal information and store it in a secure location. This allows us to serve personalised messages, and gain insights into your preferences to improve your experience with us. If you do not use the Twitter platform, then you will not have these cookies places on your device. You can find out more information on Twitter’s cookie policy here.
- Hotjar – We use Hotjar to serve our website visitors with slightly different variations of a webpage to analyse how these variances impact the user journey. This process will apply a cookie to your device. The overall objective of using A/B Tasty is to continuously improve our website content to provide you with the best experience possible.
How to delete and block cookies
Cookies help you to get the most out of our websites. However, if you do wish to disable our cookies then please follow the instructions below.
Please remember that if you do choose to disable cookies, you may find that certain sections of our websites do not work properly.
You can easily remove any cookies that have been created in the cookied folder of your browser. For example, if you are on a Windows machine, here are the steps on how to use Windows Explorer to erase cookie files:
Click on ‘Windows Explorer’
Select the ‘Search’ button on the tool bar
Enter “cookie” into the search box field for ‘Folders and Files’
Choose ‘My Computer’ in the ‘Look In’ drop down menu
Click on ‘Search Now’
Select and open the folders that are retrieved
Click to highlight any cookie file
Click the ‘Delete’ key to erase the cookie file
If you do not have Windows Explorer, click the ‘help’ function on your ‘start’ button and enter ‘cookies’ to search for information on how to locate the folder. Further information can be found at the links below:
You can also block cookies by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of all or some cookies initially. However, if you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies) you may not be able to access all or parts of our websites.
If you use different computers in different locations, you will need to ensure that each browser is adjusted to suit your cookie preferences.