COOKIES AND TRACKING TECHNOLOGIES POLICY
Updated on 26 August 2014
BBC Worldwide ("BBCW"), our service providers and advertising
partners use cookies and tracking technologies on our websites and
mobile apps to enable us to analyse use of our online services, to
improve and personalise your experience of our services and to
serve advertising which, on some services, may be tailored to you
based on your browsing behaviour and other data held about you.
BBCW respects your right to privacy and we aim to be transparent
at all times about when, how and why data about you and your
browsing behaviours may be used in connection with our services. We
are committed to using cookies and tracking technologies fairly and
in accordance with your privacy rights. This policy describes:
To find out more about the company and our approach to privacy
please read our Privacy
Policy.
1. WHAT ARE COOKIES AND ONLINE TRACKING TECHNOLOGIES?
Web Browser Cookies
A cookie is a small text file that is sent by a website to your
computer or mobile device where it is stored by your web browser. A
cookie contains limited non-personal data, usually a unique
identifier and the name of the site. This enables a website to
recognise you as you move around the site and/or each time you
revisit. Cookies are used for a wide variety of purposes such as to
keep you logged in or to remember what's in your basket if you're
shopping online, to remember your preferences and settings, to
analyse how the site is used by you, and to serve advertising to
you.
Cookies may be served to you by the website you are visiting (a
"first party cookie") or by another organisation providing
services to that website, such as an analytics company or
advertising network (a "third party cookie"). They will
either be stored for the duration of your visit (a "session
cookie") or they will remain on your device for a fixed
period, which could be months or even years, to remember you across
multiple browsing sessions (a "persistent cookie").
Other types of local storage, such as Flash Cookies and
HTML5 Storage
Many websites use Adobe Flash Player to deliver video and game
content to their users. Adobe utilise their own cookies which are
used by the Flash Player to store data such as your preferences,
and your viewing and browsing history.
HTML5 Storage is similar in concept to browser cookies in that
the data is stored in your browser's files, and it is used for
similar purposes, however as this storage enables website
publishers to store greater amounts of data, they will often use it
to store usage data and preferences (alongside the unique ID
usually stored in a cookie) instead of on their own systems.
Tracking technologies: web beacons/GIFs, page tags,
script
Web pages, emails and mobile apps may contain a small
transparent image file or line of code to record how you interact
with them. They are often used in conjunction with web browser
cookies (or the unique identifier of your mobile device) and they
are used to help website and app publishers to better analyse and
improve their services and to target advertising based on your
browsing behaviour and interests. For example by knowing which web
pages you visit or which elements of a page you viewed, when and
for how long, whether you viewed and/or clicked on an advert on the
site or whether you opened or clicked on marketing emails sent to
you.
Tracking via mobile apps
When you use our Mobile Apps we may record unique identifiers
associated with your device (such as the device ID, IP address, MAC
address or IMEI number), your activity within the App and your
network location. This information may be used to analyse and
improve our services and, for Apps supported by advertising, to
serve advertising to you.
For more information about information we collect from your use
of our Apps, please see our Mobile
Apps Privacy Policy.
2. HOW WE USE COOKIES ON OUR ONLINE SERVICES
We use cookies and tracking technologies for a variety of
reasons such as to enable us to recognise when you have logged in,
to improve your experience of the services and to deliver
advertising. In particular, we use these technologies for:
- Strictly Necessary Purposes: to keep
you logged in, to facilitate a purchase, to improve the security of
our services and for system administration, such as preventing
fraudulent or disruptive activity;
- Functionality Purposes: to remember your preferences
and settings and other functionality you have requested such as
remembering your username and password so that you do not need to
login each time you visit;
- Analytics and Performance-Related Purposes:
to record what you like and don't like on the website and the
popularity of various elements of the website so that we can ensure
that it works properly at points of high usage. We also use
analytics companies to gather information regarding users of our
services on our behalf using cookies, log file data and code which
is embedded on our website.
- Advertising Purposes: some of our websites contain
advertising and all advertising that is served on our websites will
be clearly marked with the word "Advertisement". Cookies and
tracking technologies may sometimes be used to deliver advertising
and marketing messages relevant to you - a common practice across
the internet and known as online behavioural advertising.
More information about analytics and advertising is detailed
below.
Analytics on our services
On our websites we use Google Analytics, and other similar
services, to collect statistical information about how our websites
are used. They use information such as your IP address, browser
type and unique identifiers stored in (first party) cookies on your
device to record how you interact with our website. On some
services we also use Google Demographics and
Interests data gathered via the Google DoubleClick cookie.
We only use this data in aggregate form and we do not merge it with
any other data we hold, however it is important to note that these
reports are derived from Google's (third party) DoubleClick cookie
and device identifiers, which are also used for advertising.
These analytical services help us to know how many users we
have, which parts of our sites are most popular, what browsers are
used (so we can maximise compatibility), the country or region
where our users are located, and the demographics and interests of
our users. This enables us to better understand who is using our
site and to ensure we are reaching our target demographic, and to
improve and tailor our services accordingly.
OPT OUT: Click here to find out more about our
analytics partners and to opt out.
Advertising on our services
Some of our services carry targeted or behavioural advertising,
as well as non-targeted advertising, which helps us to pay for the
delivery of these services to you. Our advertising partners use
cookies accompanying the adverts to enable them and their
advertisers to monitor the effectiveness of their ads (e.g. by
using statistical analysis cookies).
We may also use cookies and your IP address to discover general
information about which pages on our sites you visit and the
country, city or region in which you are located. We sometimes
combine this with information provided to us by third parties,
together this information enables you to be grouped with other
people with similar interests and places you in a market segment,
such as "travel", "autos", or . We may then display advertisements
which we believe people in your market segment will find relevant.
We believe this makes the advertising more interesting and useful
to you, and also helps us increase the value we get out of the site
from our advertisers, and therefore ultimately gives us a greater
ability to invest in great content for the benefit of all
users.
We may also allow advertisers to use their own marketing data to
target advertising campaigns on this website and as a result you
may see advertising based upon website content you have been
viewing on another website. For example, a retailer might use
information about the products you browsed on their website in
order to tailor their advert to you on this website. This
information is not shared with us and we do not share information
with the advertiser about your browsing of our website.
It is important to note that at no time do we or our
service providers attempt to identify you individually nor do we
create a profile of you for the purposes of delivering
advertising. We are committed to following best practice
in our use of online behavioural targeting technology and we at all
times seek to comply with applicable regulatory frameworks, such as
that of the European Digital Advertising Alliance. For more
information about OBA please visit www.youronlinechoices.com/.
OPT OUT: To opt out, follow the instructions
provided here.
3. YOUR CHOICES: MANAGING COOKIES AND "OPTING OUT"
Opting out of Analytics Cookies
To find out more about the analytics services used on our
websites and to opt-out please visit:
Opting out of Advertising Cookies
The table below shows the 3 main associations that represent the
advertising networks allowed on our sites. You can visit their
websites to opt out of all cookies served by their members and they
will explain what happens as a result of opting out. Typically,
they will scan your device for a few seconds to see what cookies
are currently set and then provide you with the facility to opt out
on an individual basis or completely from all cookies. In opting
out, a cookie will be set to let advertisers know not to use your
data for targeted advertising purposes; you will still see adverts
they just won't be tailored to your interests. If you clear your
cookies via your browser you will need to go through the opt-out
process again.
Managing cookies and local storage on your device
Web browser cookies: You can choose how web
browser cookies are handled by your device via your browser
settings including to refuse or delete all cookies. If you choose
not to receive cookies at any time, the website may not function
properly and certain services will not be provided. Each browser is
different, so check the "Help" menu of your browser to learn how to
change your cookie preferences or follow the instructions provided
at: www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies/,
which provides information for the most common browsers.
Local Storage (Flash and HTML5): The most common browsers clear
your locally stored data when you choose to delete/clear your
cookies and web browsing data; consult the Help function of your
browser for more details. Alternatively, you can manage which
websites can store information (and how much) in Flash cookies by
visiting the settings panel on the Adobe
website.
The 'Do Not Track' (DNT) function on your web browser
DNT is a feature offered by some browsers which, when enabled,
sends a signal to websites to request that your browsing is not
tracked, such as by third party ad networks, social networks and
analytic companies. This website does not currently respond to DNT
requests, however, you may opt-out of tracking for analytics and
advertising purposes using the links provided above.
A uniform standard has not yet been adopted to determine how DNT
requests should be interpreted and what actions should be taken by
websites and third parties. We will continue to review DNT and
other new technologies and may adopt a DNT standard once
available.
4. CONTACT US
If you have any questions or concerns about BBCW's use of
cookies and other tracking technologies, or if you believe there
has been a breach of this policy, please email us at: [email protected].