Cookie Policy
This policy was last revised on 25 May 2018.
What are cookies?
Cookies are small text files that are sent by a website to a web browser and contain information that is transferred to your computer’s hard drive. This enables the website to identify and track the web browser. Cookies can, among other functions, enable a website to recognise a device each time it visits, remember user preferences and recommend content. Cookies in themselves do not identify the individual user, but rather the computer used. However, some cookies will contain personal information such as a user name.
Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a more personalised user experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our website. By continuing to browse and use our website, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.
Different cookies do different things and some are essential to the operation of a website, whilst others are not. The different types of cookie are:
- Strictly necessary cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our website such as your account profile.
- Analytical/performance cookies. These allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors to our website and to see how visitors move around our website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.
- Functionality cookies. These are used to recognise you when you return to our website, enabling us to personalise our content for you, greet you by name and remember your preferences.
- Targeting cookies. These cookies record your visits to our website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make our website and the advertising displayed on it more relevant to your interests. We may also share this information (in anonymised form) with third parties for this purpose.
To the extent that any personal information is collected through our use of cookies, our Privacy Policy will apply to our processing of that personal information.
What cookies do we use?
You can find more information about the individual cookies placed by our website and the purposes for which we use them in the table below:
Cookie(s) | Purpose | Expiry of cookie |
MUID MR MUIDB _uetsid | These cookies are used by Microsoft advertising to anonymously identify user sessions to help us measure the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns | 2 years _uetsid expires after 30 minutes. |
test_cookie | Third party cookie used to provide users with relevant products that might be of interest to you. The advertisements seen by users of the website are served by a small selection of third party ad serving providers, including Invitemedia, Adviva.net (Specific Media), MSN, Google Display and Unanimis. The cookies accompanying the ads allow them and their advertisers to monitor the effectiveness of the ads. | 15 mins |
_ga _gat _gid OTZ APISID HSID SAPISID SID SSID SIDCC | Our website employs cookies from Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. Google Analytics cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use our website. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the website, where visitors have come to the website from and the pages they visited. A method called session stitching may be used to aggregate data from several visits to the site from a single user, and this is done by passing a User-ID to Google (but not your name, IP address, email, or other personally identifiable data). We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve our website. Google holds this information and provides us with access to it. Find out more about Google Analytics at: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/cookie-usage. The Google Analytics privacy policy is at: http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/. You can find out how to opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics by visiting https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. | _ga expires 2 years after being set. _gat expires 10 minutes after being set. _gid expires after 24 hour. OTZ expires after 1 month. APISID, HSID, SAPISID, SID and SSID expire after two years. |
_gcl_aw NID 1P_JAR Conversion DV | Created by Google Adwords, these cookies store any ad click information, generates unique ID’s for visitors to remember preferences and to track and gather statistics and conversion rates through the website. | _gcl_aw Expires after 90 days NID expires after 6 months 1P_JAR and Conversion expire after 30 days. |
X-Mapping-{…} | Saves the address and port number of the web server that is managing the session. Used to improve the website's performance. | Session |
preflighting | Handles proofing in the background | Session |
PLAY_ERRORS | Set by the site and used to display error messages (e.g. form validation) | Session |
PLAY_FLASH | Set by the site and used for messaging - e.g. add to basket confirmation | Session |
PLAY_SESSION | Set by the site and used for storing the website session. | Session |
PHPSESSID | WordPress session ID, for visitors to the Solopress blog | Session |
__livechat __livechat_lastvisit 3rdparty amplitude_idlivechatinc.com amplitude_testlivechatinc.com common_iwcs_5 main_window_timestamp message_text notification[personal_invitation] recent_window __lc.visitor_id.{…} lc_window_state autoinvite_callback _waiting_in_queue _lc_mcid _lc_mcst _lc_vv | Used to provide livechat service, and personalise that service for users. More information… https://www.livechatinc.com/privacy-policy/ | Persistent Persistent Session Persistent Persistent |
__utmt_player __utma __utmb __utmc player vuid | Cookies set by the Vimeo video player, including Google analytics for Vimeo embedded video. | Session 2 years Session Session |
pid | Enables Twitter's Tailored Suggestions feature that personalizes content and suggestions for Twitter users based on their website visits. https://support.twitter.com/articles/20170514 | 18 months |
_hjIncludedInSample | Cookies created by HotJar, for statistical and analytical purposes and to let hotjar know whether a visitor is included in the sample used to generate funnels. | Session |
fr | Tracks opted out Facebook users, used for advertising purposes. | Expires after 3 months. |
What about third-party cookies?
Third parties, including, for example, advertising networks and providers of external services like web traffic analysis services, also use cookies. These cookies are likely to be analytical/performance cookies or targeting cookies. They are used, for example, to track how many users have seen a particular ad and to ensure that you see ads that are relevant to you. These cookies are placed by the relevant third party and we have no control over these cookies other than allowing them to be served. See the table above for more specific information about some of the third party cookies which are used on our website.
Can I refuse or opt out of cookies?
Most browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually change your browser settings to limit or prevent cookies. Unless you have adjusted your browser settings so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies as soon as you visit our website. If you set your browser to not accept cookies, it may result in certain sections of our website not working properly and certain personalised services not being provided to users of your computer.
More information about cookies generally can be found at: http://www.allaboutcookies.org/.
You can find out how to opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics by visiting https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
Making changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time. Please check back here whenever you visit our website to see if any changes have been made. When we update this policy, we will also update the "Last Updated" date at the top of the page.
Contact us
If you have any comments or questions about how cookies are used on our website, please contact us by email at [email protected]. You can also write to us at Solopress, 9 Stock Road, Southend-on-Sea, Essex, SS2 5QF.