What are cookies?
Cookies are small files that are put on your computer by websites as you surf them. These cookies can store lots of information which can have privacy implications. They can be removed at any time by ‘clearing out cookies’ through your browser – pressing Ctrl+Shift+Delete may work in many cases. We like to think all the cookies used on this site are fairly innocuous but that’s for you to judge.
What are the cookies we use?
Anonymous tracking software
We use Google Analytics (like just about everybody else), a service provided by Google. They gather anonymous data of how people are using this site and then provide us with visitor statistics, details of page views etc. It’s like an online version of CCTV but one that automatically blurs your face so we can see what people have done, but not who. If you are anti-Google you can opt-out of being tracked by Google Analytics at http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout, although we find the statistics really useful when planning our site to enhance the user experience.
We also store cookies through WordPress which is the Content Management System we used to build this site. The cookies are used to highlight problems with the site in terms of missing pages or errors. Again, all data is anonymous, and we only ever look at this data if something has gone wrong with our site. To date, nothing has done wrong, but it’s useful to know it’s there in case anything ever does.
Website widgets
Some of the ‘widgets’ we use on our web site to provide functionality also use cookies. They are:
• YouTube
• Vimeo
We are confident that they all collect data anonymously unless you are already logged into their service. They most probably collect details of pages visited, anonymise it, and aggregate it with other people’s anonymous data. In many cases the cookies are used to generate identical information to Google Analytics (see above) and indeed use Google Analytics, so opting out of Google Analytics will also opt you out of these cookies too.
If you have any views on the cookies we are using, we would welcome your input!
Don’t want any cookies ever?
If you are really anti-cookie, then there is no option except to not use our site. You can remove any cookies we have already put on your machine within your browser settings – pressing Ctrl+Shift+Delete may work in many cases.