Our website uses cookies. Cookies are small text files that web servers can store on your computer’s hard drive when you visit a website. Websites typically use cookies to ensure that you see the content you want when you go back to a site, to enable you to see protected content when you have logged in with a username and password or to remember what you have put into your shopping cart when you are online shopping.
Cookies are stored on your computer – they are not associated with an individual, just with the browser that is being used. That’s why the information you may view on your work computer is not remembered when you go home. They do not store personally identifiable information.
Session or persistent cookies
Some cookies are session cookies. This means they are deleted when you close your web browser (that is Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari etc). These are the cookies typically used when you log into a bank or make an online purchase.
Other cookies are persistent. This means they remain on your computer until they expire. This can be a fixed time after you have visited the website (e.g., one year) or a particular date (e.g., 31 January 2016). These cookies are used to remember information about visits to a website. For example, if you tell the Google website to remember which weather forecast you want to see, it will use a cookie to remember that.
First or third party cookies
First party cookies are set by the site you are visiting. In the example above the cookie would be set by the Google. They are only read when you go back to the same site again.
Third party cookies are set by someone other than the site owner. These may be set by agencies who have placed adverts on a site you visit, by analytics programmes that help site owners know how well their site is working and similar organisations. If you go to another site that uses the same advert provider, the cookie may be read again, and the advertising agency will be able to recognise that the same computer has visited this site too. This information is generally used by agencies to target adverts so that you are more likely to see adverts for products you are interested in.
Use of cookies by Switchport
First party cookies
On our site, the only first party cookie we use is part of our content management system (CMS). The CMS is the system we use to update the site and the cookie is only set when a member of our staff logs in. These are session cookies and would not be created for other users. If you refuse to accept cookies from Switchport, your experience of the site will not be affected.
On our online ordering section, we use session cookies when you are ordering numbers. This allows us to ensure that numbers are not double allocated when you are purchasing a phone number at the same time as someone else. If you refuse cookies from this site, you may purchase a number that someone else is purchasing at the same time although this will be very rare.
Website analytics
We use third party website analytics providers to monitor visitor traffic to our site to supply website reporting and analytics. This gives us information about the pages on our site that visitors view, where our visitors come from (for example, whether they were directed to our site by a search engine), how long they choose to stay on the site, the types of browsers they use and so on.
We use this information to enhance our website offering so that we give our users the best possible experience on the site and to monitor the effectiveness of our marketing activities. However, this information is provided in anonymised, aggregate form only. It does not enable you or your activity on our site to be individually identified.
We use the following website analytics providers:
Google Analytics
Switchport uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. Google Analytics sets a cookie in order to evaluate your use of our website. The information collected by Google Analytics helps us to understand how people use our website, what technologies they use, whether they have followed a link or carried out a search to find the site and which pages are most popular. It does not give us individually identifiable information about your interaction with the site.
Google stores the information collected by the cookie on servers in the United States. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law or where such third parties process the information on Google’s behalf. Google will not associate your Internet Provider (IP) address with any other data held by Google. By using this website, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner and for the purposes set out above.
To find out more about the Google Analytics cookie and to reject or delete this cookie, you can visit the Google Privacy site at http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacypolicy.html
How can you control and delete cookies?
Switchport will not use cookies to collect personally identifiable information about you. However, you have the right to disable or delete cookies. If you wish to restrict or block the cookies which are set by us, or indeed any other website, you can do this through your browser settings.
As the means by which you can do this varies from browser to browser, please follow the instructions provided by the specific browser you use (usually located under the “Help”, “Tools” or “Edit” function).
Alternatively, an external resource is available at www.aboutcookies.org, which provides comprehensive information about cookies and how to manage them to suit your preferences on a wide variety of browsers. You will also find details on how to delete cookies from your computer (including those from this visit) as well as more general information about cookies. For information on how to do this on the browser of your mobile device, you will need to refer to your handset manual.
As mentioned above, some of our services require cookies in your browser to help you purchase numbers safely. If you choose to set your browser to disable cookies, you may not be able to access some secure areas of this site (including online ordering of numbers).
How to manage cookies in your browser
Most modern browsers will allow you to:
- See what cookies you’ve got and delete them on an individual basis
- Block third party cookies
- Block cookies from particular sites
- Block all cookies from being set
- Delete all cookies when you close your browser
See what cookies you’ve got and delete them on an individual basis. Block third party cookies. Block cookies from particular sites. Block all cookies from being set. Delete all cookies when you close your browser.
If you are primarily concerned about third party cookies generated by advertisers, you can turn these off separately. This is discussed in more detail below.
The links below take you to the ‘Help’ sections for each of the major browsers so that you can find out more about how to manage your cookies.
Internet Explorer
http://support.microsoft.com/kb (opens in a new window)
Firefox
http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/Cookies (opens in a new window)
Google Chrome
http://support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=95647 (opens in a new window)
Opera
http://www.opera.com/help (opens in a new window)
Safari
https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/en-ww/cookies (opens in a new window)
Safari iOS
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201265 (opens in a new window)
Android
https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/114836?hl=en-GB&ref_topic=3421433 (opens in a new window)
Blackberry
http://help.blackberry.com/en/blackberry-passport-series/current/help/mwa1334238823957.html (opens in a new window)
Windows Phone
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsphone/en-us/howto/wp7/web/changing-privacy-and-other-browser-settings.aspx (opens in a new window)