Cookies and how they are used – Courses for Horses

What are cookies and how do they work?

A cookie is a text file containing information that can be remembered by a web browser between pages. When an individual uses a web browser to access the internet their browser can create cookies which are stored on the user’s computer. Cookies are not programs and therefore cannot contain viruses or other malicious software. They are purely a string of text and numbers.

There are two main types of cookies – session cookies and persistent cookies.

Session cookies only last during a single visit. When a user closes their web browser the session cookie information is automatically removed from their computer. The Courses for Horses website uses session cookies for two purposes:

1. Two session cookies are set that temporarily store a unique identifier for each visitor to the website. This identifier is a random series of letters and numbers and doesn’t contain any personal or identifiable information. It is used to help count the number of visitors to the Courses for Horses website.
2. Two cookies are set by the computer systems that run the Courses for Horses website. These cookies are used as part of the process of sending web pages to the user’s web browser and are essential – no website using Microsoft technology will work without these cookies.
3. Persistent cookies are stored by the user’s web browser even when the web browser has been closed, so that the next time a user goes back to the website that originally set the cookie, the web site can read information back from the cookie. Persistent cookies have an expiry date which controls when they are automatically deleted. This can be anything from a few minutes to several years.

Courses for Horses use persistent cookies for the following purposes:

1. Google Analytics is a system used by many website to record information about who visits a website. Google set five different cookies with expiry dates ranging from 1 day to 2 years. These cookies are used mainly to differentiate between first time visitors to a website and repeat visitors. They do not contain any personally identifiable information. You can find out more about how Google use cookies at http://www.google.com/intl/en/analytics/privacyoverview.html (English only)
2. Courses for Horses use their own cookies to remember which items a customer has put into their basket. By using a persistent cookie for this, a customer can close their web browser and come back to the Courses for Horses website subsequently and still be able to access items that had been put into their shopping basket on a previous visit. This cookie is essential for the functioning of the Courses for Horses website as without it customers would be unable to place items into the shopping basket. The cookie lasts for 1 year but is cleared once an order has been placed.
3. Courses for Horses also use a cookie to remember a user’s website preferences such as preferred language, currency and delivery country. The first time a customer visits the Courses for Horses website they are asked to confirm this information which is then stored in a cookie set to last for 1 year. Without this cookie the customer would have to re-enter their preferences every time they visit the website.
4. A number of persistent cookies are also set by the computers that run the Courses for Horses website. These cookies are solely used to record technical information necessary for our web servers to work properly. No personally identifiable information in stored in these cookies.
5. All cookies used by Courses for Horses are ‘first party’ cookies. This means that any cookie set on the Courses for Horses website can only be read back from the Courses for Horses website. No other website is able to read or access information from any cookie set by the Courses for Horses website. We do not use ‘third party’ cookies which would permit this sort of behaviour by other websites.

Controlling or deleting cookies

Depending on which web browser you use it is possible to control how cookies are used, or to delete existing cookies from your computer. You can find instructions on how to control the use of cookies, or delete cookies from your computer at http://www.aboutcookies.org (English only)

Please remember that if you delete or restrict cookies from the Courses for Horses website you may not be able to experience the full benefit of some of the features and services the website has to offer.