If you have come here from another website showing you a notice
about cookies - you might be wondering what all the fuss is about.
Wonder no more, we are here to help you.
New laws have been put in place across the EU to help protect
your privacy while online. All websites owned by companies
based in the EU should be complying with this law, and if they
aren't you can complain about it either to the site owners or to
legal authorities that can require websites to comply or face heavy
fines.
All websites are now supposed to tell you what they use cookies
for, and get your consent for doing so. Though most websites
will set cookies by default, you should be given an opportunity to
refuse cookies or withdraw your consent.
On this site we publish a list of our cookies here,
and enable you to prevent most of the cookies from being used, with
our Privacy
Settings control panel.
If other websites you visit don't offer you similar
functionality, they may not be compliant with the law, which means
your online privacy could be at risk without you being aware of
it.
If you don't think your rights are being respected, or if
cookies are being set by a site when you don't want them to be,
then you can do something about it.
You can complain to the site owner and ask them to explain to
you how they are complying with the law. Then if you don't
get a satisfactory answer you can report the site to the relevant
authorities.
In most EU countries, this will be the organisation responsible
for Data Protection or regulation of the telecommunications
industry.
In the UK it is the Information Commissioner's Office and they
have a page on their website where you can register a complaint: ICO Cookie
Complaints Tool.
In Ireland it is the Data
Protection Commissioner. For other EU countries - you should be
able to find out easily who is responsible for enforcing the
law.
Cookies are small pieces of data that websites can store in your
browser when you visit them. These cookies can be used to
enhance your experience of a website, creating greater
personalisation of the content and services you see.
However, some cookies can also be used to track your browsing
across many different sites, and create a profile of your
interests. This profile can be used to target you with online
advertising.
Some people don't like this kind of activity, and this is one of
the reasons the law was created.
If you want to know more about how cookies work, and what they
are used for, then go to Cookiepedia - the site
that is all about cookies and
nothing else.