How this website uses cookies
What is a cookie?
Cookies are pieces of computer code which are stored on your computer and which allow us to recognise the fact that you have visited our website. These cookies do not contain any personally identifiable pieces of information and they are not functional i.e. cookies don't do anything on your device, they simply act as a "label".
What we use cookies for.
1. Improving our website: For statistical purposes only, we track how many individual unique users we receive and how often they visit our website. We collect anonymous data which tells us which of our pages are most frequently visited and by which types of users and from which countries. This allows us to see which content is more popular than others. In order to do this, we use a web analytics tool called .
2. Ensuring our online advertising is targeted and relevant: From time to time we may engage in advertising on other websites to promote this website. The advertising partners we use may serve ads that it believes are most likely to be of interest to you, based on information about your visit to this and other websites (this information is anonymous in that it does not include your name, street address, e-mail address or telephone number).
In order to do this, our advertising partner may need to place a cookie on your computer. Furthermore, in order to identify that you are part of the relevant target audience, they may identify that you have previously visited this website by using a cookie dropped from this website (this is called re-targeting).
These advertising cookies are typically referred to as “third party cookies” because the advertising and tracking are carried out by a “third party”.
For more information about this type of online behavioural advertising, about cookies, and about how to turn this feature off, please visit www.youronlinechoices.co.uk.
How can you manage your cookies?
Browser settings: Most browsers can be altered to prevent your computer from accepting cookies, although this may mean that some of the features of this site (and other sites) will not work properly and may restrict your user experience.
These settings will typically be found in the 'options' or 'preferences' menu of your browser. In order to understand these settings, 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
Turn off anonymous Google Analytics cookies: You can install a Google Analytics browser “plug in” to prevent the website sending information about your visit to Google Analytics. More information about this can be found below.
Turn off third party cookies: In order to prevent third party cookies from being dropped onto your browser, you can go to the relevant third party website and generate a one-time “no thanks” cookie. This will stop any further cookies being served to your browser from this third party. The third party used by this website is DoubleClick and you can find out instructions on how to do this on the link below.
Other useful links
If you would like to find out more about cookies and their wider use, you may find the following links of interest:
Microsoft Cookies guide All About Cookies
The IAB has provided the following website to give information specifically about privacy issues around Internet advertising:
For further legal information about privacy issues, you may find these links useful:
Data Protection Act 1998 The Information Commissioner's Office