UsingEnglish.com

Cookies

Use of Cookies

The Site uses cookies, web beacons and similar technical tools to collect information about your access to the Site and the services we provide. Please be aware that restricting cookies will have an impact on the functionality of the Site and may prevent you using our services.

Cookies are pieces of information which include a unique reference code that a website transfers to your device to store and sometimes track information about you. A number of cookies we use last only for the duration of your web session and expire when you close your browser. Other cookies are used to remember you when you return to the Site and will last for longer. A web beacon is a small graphic image placed on a web page that is designed to allow us to monitor traffic on the Site or within electronic communications.

We use cookies to:

  • remember that you have used the Site before; this means we can identify the number of unique visitors we receive to different parts of the Site. This allows us to make sure we have enough capacity for the number of users that we get and make sure that the Site runs fast enough;
  • remember your login session so you can move from one page to another within the Site;
  • store your preferences or your user name and password so that you do not need to input these every time you visit the Site;
  • customise elements of the layout and/or content of the pages of the Site for you;
  • collect statistical information about how you use the Site so that we can improve the Site; and
  • gather information about the pages on the Site that you visit, and also other information about other websites that you visit.

Some of the cookies used by the Site are set by us, and some are set by third parties who are delivering services on our behalf such as our advertising partners who serve advertisements that they believe are most likely to be of interest to you, based on information about your visit to the Site and other websites (this information is anonymous in that it does not include your name, street address, email address or telephone number). For more information about this type of online behavioural advertising please visit www.youronlinechoices.co.uk or follow the link to the relevant website of our advertising partners shown below.

You can choose to disable cookies from this Site or selectively from any of the 3rd party advertising vendors (such as Google) by changing your browser settings or using other software tools. If you disable cookies used on this website, you will be unable to log in to the website or use other features and services provided, but will still be able to access a lot of the site's public content. Most internet browsers accept cookies automatically, but usually you can alter the settings of your browser to erase cookies or prevent automatic acceptance if you prefer. If you choose not to receive our cookies, you may not be able to use some of the core features of the Site. You can learn more about cookies and how to reject cookies using different types of browser by visiting www.allaboutcookies.org.

a) Our cookies

A description of the main cookies we use and of the general purpose we use these for is provided below. We allocated a category to each cookie so you can decide whether or not you want them to be installed. We have called them;

  • Performance Cookies –Performance Cookies collect information about how you use our website. These cookies do not collect information that identifies you. All information collected is aggregated and therefore anonymous. They are only used to improve the performance of our website.
  • Essential Cookies - These cookies are essential in order to enable you to move around the website and/or use its features such as accessing secure areas. Without these the services you are requesting such as contact or registration cannot be provided.

Where possible in the case of cookies set by third-party systems we have provided links to information about how you can manage your preferences for each cookie.

Note:

  • Not all of the following cookies are set for all visitors
  • Cookies which last for the length of the 'Session' expire shortly after the person last visits the website.

Essential Cookies:

Cookie name Purpose Type and duration (i.e. session only or persistent)
PHPSESSID This is a temporary session cookie that is set whenever you visit the site and is used to record a session/visit to the website. The contents of these cookies is usually a singly unique ID number. If you do not intend to ever log in, you may deny this cookie, but you cannot log in without it. At end of session.
AdvancedPoll[] This cookie used to track votes in our online language polls. It contains a number representing the response ID of the vote cast. Persistent: 4 days.
bb_userid This vBulletin cookie stores your user ID. It is checked every time a page loads. Persistent: 1 year
bb_lastvisit This vBulletin cookie updates the last visit and last activity times for guests and registered users (differently). Last visit is set to the last activity time (before it's updated). Last activity is always set to the specified time. Persistent: 1 year
bb_lastactivity This vBulletin cookie checks what you did when you last used the Site. This is a constantly updated cookie. Persistent: 1 year
bb_password This vBulletin cookie stores an encrypted version of your password, when you are logged into the Site. It's checked every time the page loads. Persistent: 1 year
bb_sessionhash This vBulletin cookie is needed for maintaining session state and security. It's checked on every page load. At end of session.
bb_thread_lastview[] This vBulletin cookie last visit time of specific thread.  
IDStack Cookie used to store a list of login names used from the same computer. Persistent: 4 months
skimlinks_enabled Cookie used by Skimlinks software to determine if functionality is enabled. At end of session.
vbseo_loggedin This vBulletin plugin cookie tracks whether a user is currently logged in or not. Persistent: 60 minutes

Performance Cookies:

Cookie name Purpose Type and duration (i.e. session only or persistent) More Info
_gads This cookie is used by Google for a variety of purposes (eg, ensuring Frequency Caps work correctly) which include Adsense if you have Adsense enabled. Persistent: 2 years Click Here
_utma This Google Analytics cookie is used to determine the number of unique visitors to our website and it is updated with each page viewed. Persistent: 2 years Click Here
_utmb This Google Analytics cookie is used to establish and continue a user session with this site Session: expires after 30 minutes of inactivity. Click Here
_utmc This Google Analytics cookie is a tracking code to determine session status. At end of session. Click Here
_utmv This Google Analytics cookie allows custom variables to be associated with a   Click Here
_utmz This Google Analytics cookie stores the type of referral used by the visitor to reach your site. Persistent: 6 months Click Here
_utmx This Google Analytics Website Optimiser cookie stores the variation this visitor is assigned to for each experiment, so the visitor has a consistent experience on this site. Persistent: 2 years Click Here
_utmxx This Google Analytics Website Optimiser cookie stores the variation this visitor is assigned to for each experiment, so the visitor has a consistent experience on this site. Persistent: 2 years Click Here

b) Third party cookies

Cookies are also set by third parties on the Site. More information about cookies placed by third parties and how to restrict or block their cookies can be accessed by following the link to their website.

Name Purpose/typical content Type and duration How to reject or delete this cookie
Addthis Addthis set cookies to deliver advertisements that are relevant to your interests or behaviour online such as visiting a particular advertisers website and products. Persistent up to 3 years. www.addthis.com/privacy/opt-out
Doubleclick (Google) This cookie is used to serve advertising, deliver and report on ads served on the website. The cookie also tracks what advertisments the user has seen and how often. Persistent 2 years. www.google.co.uk/privacy/ads/
Facebook The facebook cookies are used to let Facebook know you are logged in to Facebook, to help you use social plugins and share buttons. Persistent up to 2 years. www.facebook.com/help/?page=176591669064814
Google Analytics These cookies collect statistics on visitors to the site, where vistors have come to the site from and the pages they visited. This helps us to understand how people use the site and to make improvements to our site. Persistent 2 years. tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout
Twitter.com Twitter use cookies to better understand how you interact with their Services. At end of session. twitter.com/privacy

This Site uses third-party advertising companies (such as Google AdSense) to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may set their own cookies and/or may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. This information includes the user's browser, operating system, IP address, ISP etc. If you would like more information about such practices click here . Please also note that:

  • Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on this Site.
  • Google's use of the DART cookie  enables it to serve ads to you based on your visit to the Site and other sites on the Internet.
  • You may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy .

The following is a list of sources of third party AdSense ads. This list as of time of viewing, may not be up to date as Google may add others in the future, To see the latest list provided by Google, please visit Google Adsense Third Party Vendors.

Goodle Adsense Third Party Vendor Address
Adacado / Healthpricer Interactive www.adacado.com
Adform www.adform.com
ADITION www.adition.com
AdMotion www.admotion.com
AdOcean www.adoceanglobal.com
Adrime www.adrime.com
ADTECH www.adtech.com
Atlas www.atlassolutions.com
ATK Media www.atk.com/MediaCenter/mediacenter_default.asp
DC Storm www.dc-storm.com
Bluestreak www.bluestreak.com
Broadband Enterprises/Vindico www.bbe.com
Cossette www.cossette.com
Digital Control www.digital-control.biz/
DoubleClick www.doubleclick.com
ebookers SA www.ebookers.com
e-planning www.e-planning.net
eBay www.ebay.com
Emediate www.emediate.biz
Eulerian Technologies www.eulerian.net
Experteer www.experteer.de
Facilitate Digital www.facilitatedigital.com
Flashtalking www.flashtalking.com
gemiusDirectEffect www.gemius.pl
HQ Professional Service www.adnet.de
iCrossing www.icrossing.com
MediaMind www.mediamind.com
Mediaplex www.mediaplex.com
MetaPeople www.metapeople.com
Newtention www.newtention.com
Optimum Response www.optimumresponse.net
Quisma Tracker www.quisma.com
QuisMatch www.quisma.com
SMART AdServer www.smartadserver.com
Tassimo media.tassimodirect.com
TradeDoubler www.tradedoubler.com
TruEffect www.trueffect.com
Wall Street on Demand/Adhesion ad.wsod.com
Weborama/AdPerf www.weborama.com

In addition to Adsense, this Site sells advertising slots to other third-party advertising networks and providers and these will change on a frequent basis. Below is a list of some of the more frequent advertisors used on this Site:

Third Party Advertising Vendor Address
Commission Junction www.cj.com
HotChalk, Inc. www.hotchalk.com/education-network/
i-to-i TEFL www.i-to-i.com
AdMotion www.onlinetefl.com
Whitesmoke www.whitesmoke.com

In addition to cookies we use the following similar technologies in respect of your use of the Site:

  • Pixel Gif’s - these are small image files that are placed within the body of our newsletters so we can understand whether these are read and if particular content in the newsletter is of interest. This way we can improve the relevance of the content of our communications to our readers;
  • Flash cookies – We may use Adobe Flash Player to display video or image content. It may not be possible to block or restrict flash cookies using your browser setting, however information on how to control flash privacy and security settings is available from the Adobe website at: www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/security

How do I change my cookie settings?

Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set, visit www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org.

Find out how to manage cookies on popular browsers:

To find information relating to other browsers, visit the browser developer's website.

To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites, visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

We are planning to enhance our cookie tool to allow users to more easily change their cookie settings after their initial choice.


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