SADiE Cookie Control
Background Information
What are cookies???Cookies are little bits of information that a website asks a browser to store for it on your computer. Websites do this to be able to distinguish one user from another. Without them, all users of the website will be treated alike and cannot set preferences or be given individual treatment. They are a completely normal part of the internet used by the majority of websites.
How are cookies used?
Cookies can serve a similar function to the paper receipts you get when you need to collect an item from the post office or a warehouse. For example, a website may use them to keep track of which shopping basket is yours. Without them, it becomes very difficult or impossible for the website to keep track of your transactions, who you are and what you want, particularly if you go away and come back again to the same site. Apart from these kind of "functional" cookies, there are also analytical or "performance" cookies that enable the collection of anonymous statistical information about site usage. Website owners use this to manage and design the site and server infrastructure to meet the needs of their visitors. Some cookies are also used a bit like a key or swipe card that allows you to access parts of a website. You are typically "given" these by the site upon completion of a login etc. If you don't allow the cookie or delete it, you won't be able to gain access. Cookies can also be used to track your behaviour (what you are searching for etc.) across different sites, primarily in order to target advertising that is relevant to you.
First Party and Third Party cookies
First party cookies are the ones stored by the website you are actually on at the time as indicated by the URL in the address bar. Third party cookies are stored by another site that is incorporated in the first site. These are usually via a plug-in (such as a Facebook "Like" button) or an advert served via that site.
What's all the fuss about?
The European Union (where we're based) passed a directive, EC directive 2009/136/EC, which requires websites to get consent before they store cookies on user's computers. The British Government interpretation of that appears to be that if you have implied informed consent, that's enough - hence the cookies info header when you entered the site. If you don't want to consent, you come here where you can set your preferences for what cookies get stored. Some cookies (termed "essential" cookies) you cannot disable here - to do so would render parts of the site unusable and the EU agrees that if the cookies are required to perform a function that you have specifically requested, we don't need your specific consent.
List of SADiE Cookies
This web site currently uses very few cookies. These are detailed below. Depending on your browser settings and preferences, pages you have visited, and links you have followed, not all of these cookies may be present. You should be able to view the values and data stored in these cookies on your computer via your browser.
| Description | Cookie Name(s) | Purpose | Notes |
 Source Code
| src | Used to keep a record of what link you followed to arrive on this website. | This is mainly used for our marketing purposes to monitor the effectiveness of advertising campaigns, but it also can be used to provide specific content based on particular promotions - removing it will usually not cause any problems, but you might find that some promotions do not appear or do not appear as expected. You might also find that some content that is not applicable to you (e.g., regionally specific content) is displayed. This cookie is set to be deleted when you close your browser.Note 1 |
| Cookie consent
| cookie_consent | Holds your cookie preference. | EC directive 2009/136/EC Paragraph 66 requires that we get your consent before storing some types of cookies on your computer. This cookie is to keep a record of this consent as set on this page. If you set a preference for us not storing cookies, you should find that this is the only cookie set (apart from "essential" ones) and it will be set to "false". |
 Google Analytics
| _utma _utmb _utmc _utmz | These cookies are used by Google on our behalf to collect anonymous information about how visitors use our site. | We use the information from Google Analytics to compile reports and to help us improve the site. The "_utmc" cookie is deleted when you close your browser. The others remain for up to two years. More information about how this is used can be found here: Google Privacy Overview To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. You may find it useful to think of these as secret ballot slips used to vote for your preferred way of doing things as we look at things such as the kind of device (mobile or desktop), operating system, most visited pages etc. in order to decide how to design the site. If you disable cookies for this, your "vote" will not be counted. |
List of Third Party Cookies
There are currently a few third party plug-ins that make use of cookies. All currently are for social media integration.
| Description | Cookie Name(s) | Purpose | Notes |
 Addthis
| __atuvc, +various | These are stored by the Addthis social media integration plugin | Disallowing these will block the AddThis plugins from being displayed. |
Note 1 - Although a cookie may be set to be deleted at the end of a browsing session ("session cookie"), many modern browsers allow you to "resume" or "restore" a previous session on start-up. In order to do this, the browser will keep these cookies despite the cookie settings. Typically this will appear as an option in the browser preferences, for example, Firefox has a setting "When Firefox starts show my windows and tabs from last time" which will cause this behaviour.
