Cookie Policy
This cookie policy is for visitors and users of this website, operated by P14 Media, (throughout this policy referred to as “we”, “us”, “our”, and “the company”).
The aim of this policy is to inform you in a transparent manner, what cookies are, how we use them, and how you can control them.
Along with the privacy policy, this cookie policy forms part of our compliance with the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR).
It also forms part of our general terms of use for users of, and visitors to, this website.
Additional CCPA terms can be found in the privacy policy.
1. What are cookies?
Modern websites are complicated and versatile entities, which are often designed to enhance the user experience by reacting and adjusting their responses to each individual user.
To do this, websites need to gather and remember certain information about the user.
This is done by creating small text files called cookies, which are stored locally on your own computer or device.
These cookies can help facilitate many different aspects of a website, making your internet experience smoother and more interactive. These can include remembering login details, saving your preferences for often visited sites, helping you navigate a site more efficiently, saving the contents of a shopping basket and ensuring online advertising and marketing is relevant to your interests and needs.
Some cookies also collect analytical data such as location and browsing patterns which is often used by digital publishers like us, to understand how websites are being used and improve the user experience.
In conjunction with cookies, some websites may also use small transparent images called web beacons, (also known as clear gifs or tracking pixels). These beacons do not carry any identifiable personal data and collect only limited information, such as the page they are on and a timestamp. They are used mostly to track the effectiveness of a campaign, by counting visitors and so on. (Similar to visible visitor counters which were common on old websites).
1a. Types of cookie.
There are two types of cookie, these are:
- Persistent cookies: These cookies remain on a users device for a set period of time and are activated whenever a user visits the website that created that cookie.
- Session cookies: These cookies are temporary, and are only capable of operation during a single browser session. When a website is closed the cookie is deleted.
Cookies normally fall into one of the following four categories:
- Strictly necessary: These are cookies which are needed for a website to operate correctly. They can include cookies which deal with site navigation, user registration and logins, and shopping basket functions. Without these cookies being active, you would lose this type of basic site functionality.
- Performance: These are the cookies which provide us with website statistics and user interaction data. They can track things such as how long you stay on our websites, visitor numbers, and how you found us. We use these cookies to understand how you are interacting with our website and to improve our services.
These cookies are usually placed by third party analytics providers who we use to perform these services for us, such as Google. - Functionality: These cookies help with your user experience. This could be performing tasks such as not displaying messages intended for first time users if you have visited a site before, remembering your chosen profile settings or providing you with personalised functions such as local news or weather.
- Targeted advertising: These cookies help us to only show you advertising which is relevant and of interest. They also help to track the effectiveness of advertising, can provide security when clicking through to advertisers and can stop an advert being shown to you too many times. They are usually placed by third party advertising networks with our permission.
Please note, that while we may use advertising on some of our company owned websites, this specific site contains no third party advertising in any section.
2. How do we use cookies?
We use cookies across all of our websites for a number of reasons. The most common of these are listed below:
Please note: Not all of these functions are in use on this specific website.
- To track site performance and understand user behaviour: This is something that hopefully improves our websites and your enjoyment of them over time. We are always striving to make our content enjoyable and our websites easy and entertaining to use. The data we collect from cookies performing this task enables us to understand what is working and what isn’t working on our websites, and thus, make them better.
- To remember login and comments settings: Some of our websites may allow users to create user accounts or leave comments on posts. The cookies tracking this, allow you to browse the website or leave comments on different posts without having to re-login on every page.
- To present you with targeted marketing: As a company, we do not believe users should have to pay to access journalist or other content on any website including our own. We do not believe media outlets should lock away their content behind paywalls. However, like any business, websites still cost money to run. We fund our business through a variety of methods, the most important of which is advertising. These cookies simply try to ensure that any advertising you see on our websites is relevant and of interest to you.
Please be aware that disabling advertising cookies will not stop you seeing adverts on our websites. It will just mean the adverts will be generic and of less relevance to you. - External affiliate tracking: Our websites may also contain links to products, services and websites which we believe may be of interest to you. Sometimes we will be paid should you choose to purchase a product on the websites we recommend. These cookies track your journey from us to purchase and ensure we are paid the correct amount for the recommendation. Please note that any such commercial arrangements do not influence our editorial content in any way and we strictly control which websites and products we are affiliated with.
We believe all of the cookies we use serve a legitimate purpose in either helping us to provide a high quality service to our website users, or helping us understand the needs of our users. Your experience of our websites could be adversely affected should you choose to disable cookies.
3. How can you control your cookies?
You can control your cookies in multiple ways. The most common being the settings within your preferred internet browser. You can erase cookies or prevent automatic acceptance. You can also block or reject all cookies.
You may also opt out of individual performance or advertising cookies on each service provider’s website, or in your account settings for providers such as Google.
You can also use the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance (EDAA) consumer advice website to opt out of cookies. This site will generate a list of all cookies currently on your device. The link is at the bottom of this policy.
Don’t forget, whilst it is your right to do so, we do not recommend the deactivation or blocking of cookies. These are not executable files or sophisticated software. They are mini text based databases used to give your browser a memory. Deactivating essential cookies may result in certain website functions failing. Deactivating performance cookies makes is harder for us to develop and improve our websites. Deactivating functionality cookies may result in a less personal internet experience, and deactivating advertising cookies simply means being shown advertising which may not be relevant to your interests.
4. Links.
Please refer to your chosen web browsers documentation for instructions on cookie settings.
Opt out and settings links for advertising and affiliate networks:
EDAA: Your online choices.
Last Updated 27th February 2022.