We want to make your online experience as interactive as possible. To this end, we use cookies or similar techniques. It is important for you to know which cookies our website uses and for what purpose. This will help protect your privacy while ensuring the ease of use of our website.
The following information is intended to provide the user with more details about the placement, use and management of cookies used by our website.
Please read the following information carefully
This website uses its own and third-party cookies to provide visitors with a much better browsing experience and services tailored to their needs and interests. In what we call “Web 2.0”, “cookies” play an important role in facilitating access to and delivery of the many services the user enjoys on the Internet, such as: customising certain settings, such as the language in which a site is viewed, the currency in which certain prices or fees are expressed, keeping options for various products (measurements, other details, etc.) in the shopping cart (and remembering these options) – thus creating “shopping cart” flexibility. Cookies provide site owners with valuable feedback on how their sites are used by users, so they can make them even more efficient and accessible to users. They allow multimedia or other applications from other sites to be embedded on a particular site to create a more valuable, useful and enjoyable browsing experience.
What is a cookie?
An “Internet Cookie” (also known as a “browser cookie” or “HTTP cookie” or simply “cookie”) is a small file of letters and numbers that will be stored on a user’s computer, mobile device or other equipment from which the Internet is accessed. The cookie is installed by a request issued by a web-server to a browser (e.g. Internet Explorer, Chrome) and is completely “passive” (contains no software, viruses or spyware and cannot access the information on the user’s hard drive).
A cookie consists of 2 parts: the name and the content or value of the cookie. Furthermore, the lifetime of a cookie is determined; technically, only the webserver that sent the cookie can access it again when a user returns to the website associated with that webserver. Cookies, by themselves, do not require personal information in order to be used and, in most cases, do not personally identify Internet users.
There are 2 broad categories of cookies:
- Session cookies – these are temporarily stored in the web browser’s cookie folder so that the browser remembers them until the user exits the website or closes the browser window (e.g. when logging in/out of a webmail or social media account).
- Persistent cookies – These are stored on the hard drive of a computer or device (and generally depend on the default lifetime of the cookie). Persistent cookies also include those placed by a website other than the one the user is currently visiting – known as ‘third party cookies’ – which can be used anonymously to remember a user’s interests so that the most relevant advertising can be delivered to users.
What are the benefits of cookies?
A cookie contains information that links a web-browser (the user) to a specific web-server (the website). If a browser accesses that web-server again, it can read the information already stored and react accordingly. Cookies provide users with a pleasant browsing experience and support the efforts of many websites to offer convenient services to users: e.g. online privacy preferences, site language choices, shopping carts or relevant advertising.
Why are cookies used?
Cookies can be used for different purposes. Firstly, cookies may be needed to ensure the proper functioning of the website. For example, without cookies, it may be difficult for the website to remember that you have logged in or what products you have added to your shopping cart. These are called mandatory cookies.
Cookies can be used to analyse how a website is used, to count the number of visitors and to find out how the website can be improved. We do not associate website usage statistics and other reports with individuals. These cookies are called analytics cookies.
Thirdly, we use social media cookies to enable the integration of social media on the website and give you the ability to immediately like or share a page or product on your preferred social media service.
A fourth important reason we use cookies is to enable online advertising, which can be tailored to display ads that are more relevant and interesting to you, both on and off our website. We do this through (targeted) advertising cookies such as Google Remarketing and Facebook Retargeting.
For example, our website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. (“Google”) to help analyze site usage. For this purpose, Google Analytics uses “cookies”, which are text files placed on your computer.
The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website – standard internet usage log information (including your IP address) and information about visitor behaviour in anonymous form – is transmitted to and stored by Google, including on servers in the United States. Before being transmitted to Google, your IP address is anonymised.
In accordance with its Privacy Shield certification, Google states that it complies with the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework. Google may transfer the information collected by Google Analytics to a third party where required to do so by law, or where that third party is processing the information on Google’s behalf.
In accordance with the Google Analytics Terms of Use, Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google.
What is the lifetime of a cookie?
Cookies are managed by web servers. The lifetime of a cookie can vary significantly, depending on the purpose for which it is placed. Some cookies are used exclusively for a single session (session cookies) and are no longer retained once the user has left the website and some cookies are retained and reused each time the user returns to that website (‘permanent cookies’). However, cookies can be deleted by the user at any time via browser settings.
What are third-party cookies?
Certain sections of content on some sites may be provided through third party/providers (e.g. a news box, a video or an advertisement). These third parties may also place cookies through the site and they are called “third party cookies” because they are not placed by the owner of that website. Third party providers must also comply with applicable law and the privacy policies of the site owner.
What kind of information is stored and accessed through cookies?
Cookies store information in a small text file that allows a website to recognise a browser. The webserver will recognise the browser until the cookie expires or is deleted. The cookie stores important information that enhances the web browsing experience (e.g. setting the language in which you want to access a site; keeping a user logged into their webmail account; online banking security; keeping products in your shopping cart).