Our use of cookies and other technologies
Our Platform uses cookies and other similar technologies to distinguish you from other Users of our Platform. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our Platform and also allows us to improve the Platform.
The cookies we use may include:
- “Analytical” cookies. They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around the Platform when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our Platform works, for example, by ensuring that Users are finding what they are looking for easily.
- “Strictly necessary” cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of our Platform. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our Platform.
- “Functionality” cookies. These are used to recognise you when you return to our Platform. This enables us to personalise our content for you, greet you by name and remember your preferences (for example, your username).
- “Targeting” cookies. These cookies record your visit to our Platform, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make our Platform and the advertising displayed on it more relevant to your interests. We may also share this information with third parties for this purpose.
Our Platform uses Google Analytics to allow us to measure how users interact with our website content. Google Analytics relies on certain cookies and you can find more information about these individual cookies and the purposes for which we use them in the tables below (more information is also available from Google here).
| The following cookies are employed by our use of analytics.js (a JavaScript library (tag)) for measuring website usage | ||
|---|---|---|
| Cookie Name | Expiration Time | Description |
| _ga | 2 years | Used to distinguish users. |
| _gid | 24 hours | Used to distinguish users. |
| _gat | 1 minute | Used to throttle request rate. |
| The following cookies are employed by our use of ga.js (a JavaScript library (tag)) for measuring website usage | ||
|---|---|---|
| Cookie Name | Expiration Time | Description |
| __utmt | 10 minutes | Used to throttle request rate. |
| __utmb | 30 mins from set/update | Used to determine new sessions/visits. The cookie is created when the javascript library executes and no existing __utmb cookies exists. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics. |
| __utmc | End of browser session | Not used in ga.js. Set for interoperability with urchin.js. Historically, this cookie operated in conjunction with the __utmb cookie to determine whether the user was in a new session/visit. |
| __utmz | 6 months from set/update | Stores the traffic source or campaign that explains how the user reached our site. The cookie is created when the javascript library executes and is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics. |
| __utmv | 2 years from set/update | Used to store visitor-level custom variable data. This cookie is created when a developer uses the _setCustomVar method with a visitor level custom variable. This cookie was also used for the deprecated _setVar method. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics. |
We also use a technology similar to cookies called HTML Local Storage, in order to distinguish you from other Users of our Platform and remember your preferences.
You can find more information about our use of HTML Local Storage and the purposes for which we use this technology in the table below.
| HTML Local Storage | Details | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| ngStorage-profile | User profile | User name, email address and other profile data |
| ngStorage-state | User state | Whether the User has acknowledged certain prompts such as one-time tips |
| ngStorage-token | Token authorisation | The auth token used to auto log users in |
| ngStorage-remember | Remember boolean | Whether the User wishes to have their log in details remembered |
Please note that our advertisers may also use cookies, over which we have no control.
You block cookies and similar technologies such as HTML Local Storage by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of data by our website Platform. Note that if you block cookies, HTML Local Storage and any other similar technologies we may use entirely, our Platform may not function properly.