What are cookies?
A cookie is a small text file that a website stores on your computer or mobile device when you visit the site.
- First party cookies are cookies set by the website you’re visiting. Only that website can read them. In addition, a website might potentially use external services, which also set their own cookies, known as third-party cookies.
- Persistent cookies are cookies saved on your computer and that are not deleted automatically when you quit your browser, unlike a session cookie, which is deleted when you quit your browser.
Every time you visit our websites, you will be prompted to accept or refuse cookies.
The purpose is to enable the site to remember your preferences (such as language, etc.) for a certain period of time.
That way, you don’t have to re-enter them when browsing around the site during the same visit.
Cookies can also be used to establish anonymized statistics about the browsing experience on our sites.
How do we use cookies?
We mostly use “first-party cookies”. These are cookies set and controlled by our company, not by any external organization.
However, to view some of our pages, you will have to accept cookies from external organizations.
First-party cookies
The 3 types of first-party cookie we use are to:
- store visitor preferences
- make our websites operational
- gather analytics data (about user behavior)
Visitor preferences
These are set by us and only we can read them. They remember:
- if you have agreed to (or refused) this site’s cookie policy
- if you have already replied to any survey pop-up (about how helpful the site content was) – so you won't be asked again
| Cookie name | Default expiration time | Purpose |
cookiesjsr |
1 year | When you first visited this website, you were asked for permission to use several services (including third-party services) that require data to be stored in your browser (cookies, local storage). Your decisions about each service (allow, deny) are stored in this cookie and are reused each time you visit this website. |
Operational cookies
There are some cookies that we have to include in order for certain web pages to function. They are required by certain IT systems. For this reason, they do not require your consent. In particular:
| Cookie name | Default expiration time | Purpose |
SSESS<ID> |
1 month | If you are logged in to this website, a session cookie is required to identify and connect your browser to your user account on this website's server. |
Analytical cookies
We use these purely for internal research on how we can improve the service we provide for all our users.
The cookies simply assess how you interact with our website – as an anonymous user (the data gathered does not identify you personally).
Also, this data is not shared with any third parties or used for any other purpose.
However, you are free to refuse these types of cookies via the cookie banner you’ll see on the first page you visit.
| Cookie name | Default expiration time | Purpose |
_ga |
2 years | Used by Google Analytics to distinguish users and analyze their behavior on the website. |
| _gid | 24 hours | Used by Google Analytics to count the number of visits to the site and understand visitor usage. |
| _gat | 1 minute | Used to limit the percentage of requests, avoiding server saturation. |
Third-party cookies
Some of our pages display content from external providers, e.g. YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
To view this third-party content, you first have to accept their specific terms and conditions. This includes their cookie policies, which we have no control over.
But if you do not view this content, no third-party cookies are installed on your device.
Third-party providers on our websites
These third-party services are outside of the control of us. Providers may, at any time, change their terms of service, purpose and use of cookies, etc.
How can you manage cookies?
Removing cookies from your device
You can delete all cookies that are already on your device by clearing the browsing history of your browser. This will remove all cookies from all websites you have visited.
Be aware though that you may also lose some saved information (e.g. saved login details, site preferences).
Managing site-specific cookies
For more detailed control over site-specific cookies, check the privacy and cookie settings in your preferred browser
Blocking cookies
You can set most modern browsers to prevent any cookies being placed on your device, but you may then have to manually adjust some preferences every time you visit a site/page. And some services and functionalities may not work properly at all (e.g. profile logging-in).