Cookie policy

A cookie is a small piece of text that is sent to a browser and stored by it. Each cookie is associated with the domain that delivered it, and is given an expiry date and a name. Cookies are useful on the web because each time you visit a site within a domain, your browser checks to see whether it has a cookie for that domain and, if the cookie hasn’t expired, sends it back to the site. In this way, websites can keep you logged in and generally make the experience easier for you. Companies in the advertising industry, such as Infectious Media, also make use of cookies. We tell you how in this document.

WHAT ARE WEB-BEACONS
Although we think of a web page as a single document, in fact it can consist of many different bits of content, all pulled together into a single page by a browser. For example each image on a page will be distinct and could come from anywhere on the web. So for each image a browser makes a request to the site where the image is located, before showing the content. Typically a beacon consists of an image that a browser is told to display so small that it does not interrupt the view of the page. This is sometimes known as a “tracking pixel”, a “clear gif”, a “web bug” or similar. When a browser wants to display that tiny image, it sends a request to us (for example) and in that request it will send any cookies that have not expired and that are set for our domain (see above for more info).

WHY COOKIES AND WEB-BEACONS ARE USED
Cookies help us to recognise a browser we have already “met”. A web-beacon informs us when a computer/tablet or other device has seen a piece of content.

A typical scenario where this is useful is when you are on a site on which we have purchased advertising space. We show you an advert for (say) shoes that you find of interest, so you click on it. The ad is linked to a site called fabulousshoes.com which is managed by our advertiser. The advertiser puts our web-beacon on its site so that when you arrive there, we know that you have been safely redirected. If you subsequently make a purchase, another web-beacon might be put on the last page of the purchase process.

It is important to note that the Cookie does not identify you. It just identifies the browser that you are using. Unless you have chosen to give us your name (for example by registering with us), and are logged in to our site, the cookie does not tell us who you are.

OUR WEB-BEACONS
Some companies pay thousands of web-sites to deploy their web-beacons so that they can build a large profiling database. We do not. We deploy web-beacons only as part of advertising campaigns for our clients. The web-beacons are placed on appropriate pages of our clients’ sites and help us analyse the performance of our clients’ advertising.

OUR COOKIES
Currently we set and use some cookies ourselves but only on our site. These are called first party cookies.
When cookies are served by another domain they are called “third party cookies”. We use some third party cookies on our site.
We list these below:

First Party Cookies

Third Party Cookies

Some users may also still have a cookie set under the impdesk.com domain, named “idb”. This is a cookie that used to be set by our in-house Ad platform named IDB. This was used in the same manner as third-party Ad platforms, i.e. to help serve behaviourally-targeted advertising. The IDB platform was permanently switched off in 2019, and these cookies will naturally expire 12 months after the date they were issued. They are not used for anything now, and we do not store any usage information connected with them nor can we recogise individuals using them. You can safely delete them using the normal mechanism in your browser, or simply wait for them to expire.

ADVERTISING COOKIES
For advertising on most external websites, we use a variety of proprietary and third party technologies to ensure the ads are efficiently and anonymously targeted to the audiences requested by our advertisers. We use third-party ad-exchange platforms, including but not limited to those operated by Google, Mediamath, Amobee and Adobe.

Depending on which technology platforms are used, a set of their cookies will be sent to your browser:

• Whenever you visit a page that has advertising provided through that technology platform (whether or not it is us that eventually provides the advertising to you)
• When you visit any page that has a web-beacon embedded from one or more of the technology platforms we work with

These cookies are used for behavioural advertising; in other words: to help third parties recognise a browser so that they can provide more relevant advertising; and to recognise a user who has opted out of behavioural advertising.

Our third party technology partners are also integrated with a number of other advertising exchanges and third parties. For example in some cases where DoubleClick, Mediamath, etc set a cookie, they may also send a number of other pixels to your browser at the same time that allows those third parties to synchronise any cookies that they have previously sent to your browser (and you have not deleted) with other third parties’ cookies. This is known as “cookie-syncing”.

For more detailed information on those third parties’ cookies please see the relevant sections on their websites.

CAN I STOP GETTING COOKIES WHEN VISITING THE INFECTIOUS MEDIA WEBSITE
Not at the moment. But you can achieve the same result by changing your browser settings so that it does not store cookies. The site All About Cookies has good information about how to do this.

BUT, if you do stop cookies from being delivered then you may find your experience on our site to be quite limited. For example you may not be able to log in, or you may be asked to log in every time you click on a link.

CAN I STOP RECEIVING BEHAVIOURAL ADVERTISING INFECTIOUS MEDIA’S PARTNERS
Yes you can (please see our privacy policy to understand the effect of this). You can opt-out of behaviourally targeted advertising from our third party partners by visiting the relevant opt-out sections of their websites.

OUR COMMITMENT
We are committed to following best practice in the areas of privacy and cookies. We will keep this policy and our use of cookies under constant review and we work with the IAB and other organisations in monitoring potential new standards.

CHANGES
As with our Privacy Policy, we may change this policy at any time. If the changes are material we will provide a suitably prominent notice so that you can read about the changes.