Wondering what a ‘cookie’ is?
It’s like a friendly little notepad, stored on your computer’s hard drive. This notepad observes how you navigate around a website. This way, when you visit the website again, it can offer you customized options based on what it noticed about your last visit. It’s like if a café knew you loved the raspberry ice cream and offered you one next time you visited. Plus, cookies help to analyze website traffic and can even help with advertising and marketing tasks. The best part? Even though nearly all websites use them, they’re harmless to your system.
You have the power to manage cookies, too. You can usually adjust what types of cookies you’re okay with in your browser settings. And if you’re not a fan, that’s okay. You can choose to block cookies at any time by updating the settings on your browser. If, however, you decide not to block cookies and continue to explore, it means you’re okay with cookies being used. One thing to note, though – if you block all cookies, you might not be able to access all parts of our site.
Why do we use cookies?
We use them to track your journey on our website. It helps us see any patterns in how you are using our site and allows us to make improvements in response to your needs or wants.
You’ll come across two types of cookies:
- Session cookies: These are stored only during your web session and get automatically deleted when you close your browser. They store an anonymous session ID which lets you browse a website without having to log in to each page, but they don’t collect any personal information from your computer.
- Persistent cookies: This type of cookie remains on your computer even after you close your browser. They can be recognized by the website that created them when you visit that website again. We use persistent cookies for Google Analytics.
And there are also different categories:
- Strictly necessary cookies: These cookies are crucial for you to use a website effectively, like when you want to buy a product or a service. They can’t be turned off. Without them, these websites can’t offer the services you need. Plus, they don’t collect any information that could be used for marketing or remembering where you’ve been on the internet.
- Performance cookies: These cookies help tweak and improve the website’s performance. They allow us to count visits, identify where our traffic comes from, and see which parts of the site are the crowd favorites.
- Functionality cookies: These cookies let our website remember the choices you make, offering enhanced features. For example, they could let us provide you with news or updates relevant to the services you use.
Third parties who may advertise on our website might also use cookies, and we don’t control these. These cookies are usually analytical or performance cookies or targeting cookies.