Cookies Policy

So, what are cookies?

Cookies are very small files that transfer from server-side to your computer whenever you visit our website (and nearly all others too).

Some of them stay on your computer after you have stopped browsing our site (persistent cookies, like the ones that handle ‘Remember Me’ type forms) and some are temporary and deleted after you leave the site or a set period of time afterwards (such as those that enable ‘Recently viewed items’).

Accepting a cookie cannot give a server access to your computer or any of the personal on your computer, apart from information that you may have given the server in order to use the site or make a purchase.

Physically, they are small text files of numbers and letters. They are not executable and cannot contain virus – they are no risk to security.

The server you visit has access to the file, but cannot access any other cookies generated by other servers and sites.

Can you block them?

Yes. Every browser allows you to block cookies, from our sites and all others. Blocking cookies may affect the sites performance for you.

What do we use them for?

Essentially, some are necessary for the function of the site, such as those created when you add products to your basket or wish-list, or when you ask the site to remember your preferences.

Others are used to enable us to analyse how the site is being used so we can always look to improve it.

We never (and frankly, can’t) use the data we collect to somehow link it to a personal account so we know which of our actual customers relate to what web activity. Although IP addresses may be collected, we do not link an IP address to a customer in our database. In most instances, IP addresses are rotated by ISPs and are therefore not much use to us, even if we wanted to try and use them.

Strictly, we use cookies for monitoring which web pages are popular, which are the most common landing or exit pages, how well the site links to itself, how fast the pages load, which devices and browsers are being used so we can optimise both the content and the user experience and site visitor numbers versus a period.

What does a cookie look like?

Something a little bit like this (we didn’t say it was exciting):

HTTP/1.0 200 OK

Set-Cookie: LSID=DQAAAK…Eaem_vYg; Path=/accounts; Expires=Wed, 13 Jan 2021 22:23:01 GMT; Secure; HttpOnly

Set-Cookie: HSID=AYQEVn…DKrdst; Domain=.foo.com; Path=/; Expires=Wed, 13 Jan 2021 22:23:01 GMT; HttpOnly

Set-Cookie: SSID=Ap4P…GTEq; Domain=foo.com; Path=/; Expires=Wed, 13 Jan 2021 22:23:01 GMT; Secure; HttpOnly

So, which cookies might be stored based on which pages you visit?

Name: sc_is_visitor_unique

Description: A variable to track if a user is a unique visit to the site.

Name: _gid

Description: Tracking variable ID – for Google Analytics

Name: _gat

Description: Tracking variable – for Google Analytics

Name: _gat – for Google Analytics

Description: Tracking variable, used to throttle request rate

Name: _ga – for Google Analytics

Description: Tracking variable to distinguish users

Third-party cookies

Name: _hjIncludedInSample