Website cookie policy and Your User Preferences—This website uses cookies, small text files placed on your device to help provide a better user experience. Generally, cookies are used to store user preferences. Cookies store information for features like shopping carts and provide anonymized tracking data to third-party applications such as Google Analytics. Generally, cookies enhance your browsing experience. However, you may prefer to disable cookies on this site and others. The most effective way to do this is to turn off cookies in your browser. We suggest consulting the Help section in your browser or visiting the About Cookies website, which provides guidance for all modern browsers.
For specific information about our use of cookies, continue reading below.
Our Use of Cookies
A cookie is a file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by a web server to a web browser and is stored by the browser. The identifier is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page. Cookies may be either “persistent” cookies or “session” cookies: a persistent cookie will be stored by a web browser and will remain valid until its set expiry date, unless deleted by the user before the expiry date; a session cookie, on the other hand, will expire at the end of the user session, when the web browser is closed. Cookies typically do not contain information that personally identifies a user. Still, the personal information we store about you may be linked to information stored in and obtained from cookies.
We use cookies for the following purposes:
(a) Authentication: We use cookies to identify you when you visit our website and as you navigate our website.
(b) Email: We use cookies to help us send relevant emails to users who have subscribed to our email list.
(c) Security: We use cookies as part of the security measures we employ to protect user accounts, including preventing fraudulent use of login credentials, and to safeguard our website and services generally.
(d) Advertising: We use cookies to help us display advertisements that will be relevant to you, and
(e) Analysis: We use cookies to help us analyze the use and performance of our website and services;
Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies and to delete cookies. The methods for doing so vary from browser to browser and from version to version. You can, however, obtain up-to-date information about blocking and deleting cookies via these links:
(a) https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95647?hl=en (Chrome);
(b) https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enable-and-disable-cookies-website-preferences (Firefox);
(c) http://www.opera.com/help/tutorials/security/cookies/ (Opera);
(d) https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/17442/windows-internet-explorer-delete-manage-cookies (Internet Explorer);
(e) https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/safari/manage-cookies-and-website-data-sfri11471/mac (Safari); and
(f) https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/windows–10-microsoft-edge-and-privacy (Edge).
Please note that blocking cookies may negatively affect the functionality of many websites, including our Site(s). Some features of the Site(s) may cease to be available to you.
Google Analytics
We use Google Analytics to analyze website usage. Google Analytics gathers information about website use by means of a cookie with a randomly generated Client ID on your browser. Google uses your personal information, such as your IP address, to capture usage reporting for the Website. You may opt out of Google Analytics using a browser add-on available here.
Google’s privacy policy is available at: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-US
Comments
If you leave a comment on our site, you may opt in to save your name, email address, and website in cookies. These are for your convenience, so you do not have to enter your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you have an account and you log in to this site, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we will also set several cookies to save your login information and screen display preferences. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. Should you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.
When visitors leave comments on the site, we collect the data shown in the comments form, as well as the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string, to help with spam detection.
An anonymized string generated from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to determine whether you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After your comment is approved, your profile picture will be visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.