- Personal info: no personally-identifiable information is collected on this website. If you send me an email, your email address and contact information is only used to respond your comments - your name, email and any other information is not saved in any database.
- Anonymous info: anonymous data is recorded by the website service provider e.g. which pages you visit. Other data may be collected including the name of your internet service provider, any website you used to link to, or visit from this site, and your IP address. The data is only used for statistical purposes, but you, as the individual user, remain anonymous.
- Cookies: This site uses persistent, first-party, functional, cookies (see cookies page). They’re used to record your settings and choices on different pages - so they’re remembered for when you return. Cookies may also be used by Google and other companies providing third-party services.
Google sets a number of cookies on pages that include Google services (e.g. embedded map, translate, etc). I have no control over the cookies set by Google - they include information to measure the number and behaviour of Google services users:
_ga - enables Google Analytics to distinguish one visitor from another. It’s unique to the specific property, so cannot be used to track a given user or browser across unrelated websites_ga* - set by Google Analytics to store and count page views1P_JAR, NID, CONSENT - this group sets a unique ID to remember your preferences and other information such as website statistics and track conversion ratesANID - an advertising cookie set by DoubleClick to make advertising more engaging to users and more valuable to publishers and advertisers__Secure-3PAPISID, __Secure-3PSID, __Secure-3PSIDCC - used to deliver ads more relevant to you and your interests
Find out how Google uses cookies here.
Sometimes “session cookies” (see cookies page) are created by the web server - these are set when you move from the homepage to another page in the site and are classed as “strictly necessary” for the functioning of the site. As such they’re exempt from the normal requirement of user consent for the use of cookies. They don’t store personally identifiable information, they’re stored in a temporary memory location (not on your device), and are deleted when you close your browser session. Examples include:
BIGipServerZebedee - this is the name of the “BIG-IP Server” cookie. It’s part of the back-end architecture of the hosting service that manages the site and belongs to the class of “load-balancing cookies”. This website is hosted on multiple servers; when you visit the site, you are assigned to one of these servers for the current session. The load-balancing cookie tracks which server you are communicating with, in order to present a consistent user experience as you move from page to page. It routes data and page requests to the correct server and so ensures that the content of the page loads quickly and effectively. For more technical information: Overview of BIG-IP persistence cookie encodingTS01237438 - this is the name of the cookie that, put simply(!), enforces elements in the security policy with regard to database management in the hosting servers (apparently). For more technical information: Overview of ASM cookies