Cookies policy

1. The use of “cookies”

When visiting the websites and/or the participants platform, 'cookies' may be left on the hard drive of your computer or mobile device. A cookie is small text file that is left by the server of a website in the browser of your computer or on your mobile device when you consult the website. The cookie contains a unique code that allows it to recognise your browser during your visit to the website (a so-called 'session' cookie) or on subsequent, repeated visits (a so-called 'permanent' cookie). Cookies may be left by the server of the website you are visiting or by partners with whom that website works together. The server of a website can only read the cookies it has left itself. It does not have access to other information on your computer or your mobile device. Cookies are stored on your computer or your mobile device in the folder of your browser. The content of a cookie usually consists of the name of the server that left the cookie, an expiry date and a unique numerical code.

Generally speaking, cookies facilitate and accelerate the interaction between the visitor and the website, helping the visitor to navigate between the various parts of a website. Cookies may also be used to render the content of a website or the publicity on a website more relevant for the visitor, adapting this to his individual tastes and needs.

Other technologies are also used for similar purposes as cookies on other platforms where cookies are not available or cannot be used, such as the advertisement ID that is used on mobile Android devices.

2. Which kinds of cookies exist?

First party cookies’ are technical cookies that are used by the visited site itself. Their purpose is to ensure the site delivers optimum performance. For example: settings made by the user on previous visits to the site, or preloaded forms with details completed by the user on previous visits.

2.1. Necessary cookies

These cookies are indispensable to be able to visit websites and to be able to use certain parts of websites. These cookies allow you to navigate between the various parts of the website for instance, or are used to fill in forms. Refusing these cookies means some parts of the website will not work or will not work to their full potential.

2.2. Functional cookies

Functional cookies are the cookies that facilitate the performance of our websites, giving you a more pleasurable and more personalised experience. These are the cookies that remember your preferences for instance.

2.3. Performance cookies

This website also uses Google Analytics. Cookies are used to gather information about the kind of use visitors make of our websites, with the aim of enhancing the content of our websites, bringing them more in line with visitors’ wishes and raising the ease and convenience of use of our websites. For example, there is a cookie that helps us count the number of unique visitors and a cookie that keeps track of which pages are most popular.

2.4. Third party cookies

Third Party cookies are cookies that are not left by the website itself, but by third parties, for instance via a marketing or advertising plug-in. Examples include cookies from Facebook or Google Analytics. For this type of cookies, visitors first need to give their consent. This consent is sought via a bar at the bottom or at the top of the screen, with reference to this policy. Refusing such cookies will not hamper your continued visit to the website.

Google Analytics:

This website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. (“Google”). Cookies are used to gather information about the kind of use visitors make of our websites, with the aim of enhancing the content of our websites, bringing them more in line with visitors’ wishes and raising the ease and convenience of use of our websites. For example, there is a cookie that helps us count the number of unique visitors and a cookie that keeps track of which pages are most popular.

Google Analytics uses “cookies”, which are text files placed on your computer, to help the website analyze how users use the site. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. In case of activation of the IP anonymization, Google will truncate/anonymize the last octet of the IP address for Member States of the European Union as well as for other parties to the Agreement on the European Economic Area. Only in exceptional cases, the full IP address is sent to and shortened by Google servers in the USA. On behalf of the website provider Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website, compiling reports on website activity for website operators and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage to the website provider. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google.

You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser. However, please note that if you do this, you may not be able to use the full functionality of this website. Furthermore you can prevent Google’s collection and use of data (cookies and IP address) by downloading and installing the browser plug-in available under https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en-GB.

You can refuse the use of Google Analytics by clicking on the following link. An opt-out cookie will be set on the computer, which prevents the future collection of your data when visiting this website: Disable Google Analytics

Further information concerning the terms and conditions of use and data privacy can be found at http://www.google.com/analytics/terms/gb.html or at https://www.google.de/intl/en_uk/policies/. Please note that on this website, Google Analytics code is supplemented by “anonymizeIp” to ensure an anonymized collection of IP addresses (so called IP-masking).

Alexa Metrics:

We use Alexa Metrics to help measure how users interact with our websites. Further information concerning the terms and conditions of use and data privacy can be found at https://www.alexa.com/help/privacy

Zopim Live chat:

Zopim helps businesses to provide a customer support. Give our brand a voice and build meaningful relationships by talking to our customers over live chat. The purpose is increase the chances of high value engagement and more sales by using proactive chat to automatically reach out to customers.
Further information concerning the terms and conditions of use and data privacy can be found at https://www.zopim.com/privacy

Social Media:

The websites and/or the participants platform also contain elements from other, third parties, such as video services (Youtube), social-media share buttons or adverts (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, Google Plus).

3. Changes to browser settings

You can set your Internet browser so that it will not accept cookies, give you a warning whenever a cookie is being installed or for the cookies to be deleted from your hard drive after you have left. You can do so by going to the settings of your browser (use the help function). As you do, bear in mind that certain graphic elements may not display correctly, or you may not be able to use certain applications.

You can refuse or delete cookies via the browser settings on your computer or mobile device. The way in which this is done may differ from one browser to the next. If need be, consult your browser’s help feature.

The following settings should be set separately per browser and per computer:

Declining, deleting or switching off cookies may cause certain features of our website and/or the participants platform to no longer be accessible or to perform poorly. As a result, the way in which you experience the site may prove a let-down.

4. Social media and the pertaining plug-ins

A lot of social media (such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, etc.) receive a great deal of information about your web surfing behaviour through social plug-ins on their websites (via the “Like” or “Share” buttons, for instance).

These buttons can also sit on our website.

If you want to protect yourself against this, you are advised (by the Commission for the Protection of Privacy to name but one) to implement one of the steps below.

Install a browser add-on that blocks tracking. Examples of such browser add-ons include:
- Privacy Badger (http://www.eff.org/privacybadger)
- Ghostery (https://www.ghostery.com)
- Disconnect (https://disconnect.me/disconnect)
Use the incognito or “private navigation” mode of your browser. Recent versions of the most widely used browsers have this type of private mode as a feature:

Social media and other websites use information about their users’ web surfing behaviour to serve them targeted publicity. To stop being tracked for targeted publicity, you can sign out for targeted adverts via the opt-out website of the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance (www.youronlinechoices.eu), or for the U.S.A. via the opt-out website http://www.aboutads.info/choices/. Want to find out more? Further details are available at the following websites: www.allaboutcookies.org and www.youronlinechoices.com/be-fe Signing out for targeted advertising does not mean that your web surfing behaviour is no longer tracked. If you also want to protect yourself against the collection of this information, you are advised to also use the incognito mode of your browser or one of the browser add-ons listed above. This features forces the browser to delete traces of your web surfing behaviour (cookies, history, etc.) after you have closed the window, preventing you from being tracked by third parties (please note: this feature does not make you invisible or anonymous on the web). There are also special privacy protection browsers, such as Epic Privacy Browser (www.epicbrowser.com).