What is a cookie?
A cookie is a small piece of data sent from our webpage and stored in your web browser, mobile phone or other device while you are using our websites. It helps the page recognise your device the next time you visit, provides you with access to certain functions and understands your website journey. Cookies are very common web technology and most websites use them. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies, which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting for our advertising and marketing efforts.
There are two types of cookies;
Session cookies – which are deleted when you close your browser; and
Persistent cookies – which stay in your browser’s sub folders until you delete them or they expire.
If you would like to find out more on how to disable cookies go to ‘How can you manage cookies’ section.
Why do we collect cookies?
Our websites use cookies to distinguish you from other users on our website. This helps us to provide you with a better experience when you browse our website and also allows us to make improvements to our site.
There are four different groups of cookies:
Strictly necessary cookies
These are essential and without them you would not be able to use our website as expected.
| What they do | Type of cookie | Cookie name |
|---|---|---|
| This cookie is set by websites run on the Windows Azure cloud platform. It is used for load balancing to make sure the visitor page requests are routed to the same server in any browsing session | Session | ARRAffinity |
| General purpose platform session cookie. Used to maintain an anonymised user session by the server. | Session | ASP.NET_SessionId |
Performance cookies
These cookies collect information about how visitors use oxfordinnovationadvice.co.uk such as which pages are viewed most often or if they get error messages on web pages. These cookies do not collect your personal information but are used to help us improve and to determine the most popular areas of our website.
| What they do | Type of cookie | Cookie name |
|---|---|---|
| This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, campaign data and keep track of site usage for the site’s analytics report. The cookies store information anonymously and assign a randomly generated number to identify unique visitors. | Persistent | _ga |
| This cookie is used by Google Analytics to identify and track an individual session with your device. | Persistent | _ga_xxxxxxxxxx |
| This cookie is set by Google and protects the site against spam enquiries on contact forms. | Persistent | _GRECAPTCHA |
| This cookie is set by Google and ensures that requests within a browsing session are made by the user and not by other sites. | Persistent | AEC |
| This cookie is set by Google Ads Optimisation to provide advertisement delivery, retargeting and to store user preferences. | Persistent | DV |
| This cookie is set by Google to store a user’s state regarding their cookie choices. | Persistent | SOCS |
How can you manage cookies?
When you access our website for the first time, and from time to time thereafter, we display a cookie banner which allows you to accept all of the cookies we use or to deny their use.
You can also set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies.
You can find more information about cookies generally at:
www.allaboutcookies.org and www.youronlinechoices.eu
