Privacy policy and the use of cookies

Privacy

We do not collect personal information on visitors. We do not share any statistical data on the usage of the site with other websites, companies or individuals.

Cookies

The CLAG website uses analytics cookies; these allow us to count page visits and traffic sources so we can measure and hopefully improve the performance of the site. The service is provided by Google Analytics. The cookies used are:

Name	Content and purpose	Expires
__utma	randomly generated number, updated on each page view, used to ascertain the number of times you visit a page	2 years
__utmb	randomly generated number, used to calculate how long your visit takes	30 minutes
__utmz	randomly generated number, used to ascertain which search engine (if any) you used, what link you clicked on, what keyword (if any) you used, and where in the world you are accessing from. The cookie is updated with each page view.	6 months

The law relating to the above cookies requires that they be used only with your consent. Bearing in mind that views on the nature of such consent vary across EU Member States, I am currently exploring ways to identify your consent without cheesing you off unduly and will notify you of any changes in due course. These deliberations will reflect the receptivity of the UK's Information Commissioner's Office to the notion of implied consent being acceptable for cookies used solely for anonymised analytics purposes, and the negligible risk to you on receiving such cookies - they cannot be used to identify you personally. We do not host any 3rd party cookies or scripts that read the Google Analytics cookies, and Google does not share this site's analytics data with any other party.

Further information on Google Analytics cookies can be found here.

The only other 'first party' cookies used on this site are the ones remembering a changed setting of the dropdown panel on the homepage, which are deleted on termination of the browser session. I regard these cookies as 'essential for the functioning of the website', so these are exempt from the need to gain consent.

The situation on third-party cookies is as follows:

The Youtube video on the CSB gallery page works fine even if you have blocked third-party cookies. If you have not blocked third party cookies, visiting that page and playing the video allows Youtube to set the following Youtube cookies:

VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE; this persistent cookie has a duration of 7 months, and seems to determine which version of the Youtube homepage you get if you visit it;
use_hitbox; this session-only cookie seems to allows the counter for the video to increment on the Youtube site;
GEO; this session-only cookie appears to allow the video to be viewed regardless of the geolocation of the user.

If you have not blocked third-party cookies, and you do not wish to receive Youtube's cookies, I do not yet know of a method of changing the page in question to prevent you watching the video, because this will depend on the setting of your browser.

The above information on cookies reflects an interpretation of the legal requirements of the The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) (Amendment) Regulations 2011.

first issued December 2011
revised 2 January 2012 to notify the introduction of analytics cookies
details on GA cookies expanded 17 January 2012
details on GA cookies further expanded 8 February 2012