BBC Worldwide - Cookies Policy
Introduction
BBC Worldwide is committed to protecting your personal
information when you are using BBCW services. We strive to make our
services safe and enjoyable environments for you to use. We
have created this separate cookies policy in order to provide
comprehensive information about BBC Worldwide's use of cookies
across its website portfolio.
This policy provides the following information for users:
Information about cookies
What is a cookie?
A cookie is a small amount of data, which often includes a
unique identifier that is sent to your computer or mobile device
(referred to here as a "device") browser from a website's server
and is stored on your device's hard drive. Each website or third
party service provider used by the website can send its own cookie
to your browser if your browser's preferences allow it, but (to
protect your privacy) your browser only permits a website or third
party service provider to access the cookies it has already sent to
you, not the cookies sent to you by other sites or other third
party service providers. A cookie will contain some anonymous
information such as a unique identifier and the site name and some
digits and numbers. It allows a website to remember things like
your preferences or what's in your shopping basket.
What is a browser?
A browser is an application that allows you to surf the
internet. The most common browsers are Chrome, Internet
Explorer, Firefox and Safari. Most browsers are secure and
offer quick and easy ways to delete information like cookies.
Please see the section below
Change your Browser
Settings'
What do cookies do?
Cookies record information about your online preferences and
allow us to tailor the websites to your interests.
Information supplied by cookies can help us to analyse your use of
our sites and help us to provide you with a better user
experience. For example, you may choose to personalise the
content of a website in order to see the latest news and weather
for your region. In order to do this, a cookie is placed on
your device to remember where you live so that we deliver the
information that has been requested by you. This is a prime
example of how cookies are used to improve your experience of a
website.
Change your Browser Settings'
You can choose how cookies are handled by your device via your
browser settings. The most popular browsers allow users to a)
accept all cookies, b) to notify you when a cookie is issued, or c)
to not receive cookies at any time. If you choose not to receive
cookies at any time, the website may not function properly and
certain services will not be provided, spoiling your experience of
the website. Each browser is different, so check the "Help"
menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie
preferences.
Types of Cookie
First Party Cookies
First party cookies are set by the website you are visiting and
they can only be read by that site.
Third Party Cookies
Third party cookies are set by other organisations that we use
for different services. For example, BBC Worldwide uses
external analytics services and these suppliers may set cookies on
BBC Worldwide's behalf in order to report what's popular and what's
not. The website you are visiting may also contain content
embedded from, for example, YouTube or Flickr and these sites may
set their own cookies.
Session Cookies
Session Cookies are stored only for the duration of your visit
to a website and these are deleted from your device when your
browsing session ends.
Persistent Cookies
This type of cookie is saved on your device for a fixed
period. Persistent cookies are used where we need to know who
you are for more than one usage session. For example, if you have
asked us to remember preferences like your location or your
username.
Flash cookies
Many websites use Adobe Flash Player to deliver video and game
content to their users. Adobe utilise their own cookies, which are
not manageable through your browser settings but are used by the
Flash Player for similar purposes, such as storing preferences or
tracking users.
Flash Cookies work in a different way to web browser cookies;
rather than having individual cookies for particular jobs, a
website is restricted to storing all data in one cookie. You can
control how much data, if any, may be stored in that cookie but you
cannot choose what type of information is allowed to be stored. You
can manage which websites can store information in Flash cookies on
your device via the
website storage settings panel
on the Adobe
website.
Web beacons, clear GIFs, page tags and web
bugs
These are all terms used to describe a particular form of
technology implemented by many websites in order to help them to
analyse how their site is being used and, in turn, to improve your
experience of their site. They may also be used to target any
advertising being served on the web page you are viewing.
A web beacon (or similar) usually takes the form of a small,
transparent image, which is embedded in a web page or an email.
They are used in conjunction with cookies and send information such
as your IP address, when you viewed the page or email, from what
device and your (broad) location.
How do we use cookies?
Cookies enable us to identify your device, or you when you have
logged in. We use cookies that are strictly necessary to enable you
to move around the site or to provide certain basic features. We
use cookies to enhance the functionality of the website by storing
your preferences, for example. We also use cookies to help us to
improve the performance of our website to provide you with a better
user experience.
Typically, we use cookies to deliver the following services
throughout the pages of our websites:
- To enable us to recognise your device so you don't have to give
the same information repeatedly;
- To recognise that you may have requested that we remember your
username and password so you don't need to enter your details each
time you visit the site;
- To ensure that if you are purchasing a product or service via
our websites, your experience is smooth and secure;
- To record what people like and don't like on the website and
the popularity of various elements of the website so that we can
ensure that it works properly at points of high usage. BBCW
also uses a number of independent measurement, advertising and
research companies. They gather information regarding the visitors
to BBCW sites on our behalf using cookies, log file data and code
which is embedded on our website. BBCW uses this type of
information to help improve the services it provides to its
users.
- Our websites contain advertising and all advertising that is
served on our websites will be clearly marked with the word
"Advertisement". Cookies may sometimes be used to
deliver advertising and marketing messages relevant to you - a
practice across the internet and known as behavioural
marketing. Please see the section below called:
What
is Behavioural Marketing?
Analytics on our Websites
hitBox / HBX / Omniture (Visual Sciences) / Google Analytics
provide anonymised statistical information for us. They
process IP addresses and information from cookies used on our sites
so we know how many page views we have, how many users we have,
what browsers they are using (so we can target our resources in the
right way to maximise compatibility for the majority of our users)
and, in some cases, in which country, city or region they are
located.
Importantly, this statistical information also allows us to
determine how much we should charge for advertising, and if we are
hitting our target audience. If we didn't have these measurement
tools to enable us to get our sums right on the advertising we
would have less money to spend on improving our sites' content.
Some of the IP address and information from cookies gathered
by these providers is processed by them outside the European
Economic Area (e.g. Omniture (Visual Sciences) processes data in
the United States and we confirm that it satisfies the EU's data
protection requirements).
If you would like to opt out of Analytics cookies, please do so
by clicking on the links below:
Omniture -
http://www.omniture.com/en/privacy/2o7#optout
Hitbox -
https://documents.hitbox.com/optout.html
Google Analytics:
https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout
Advertising Cookies on our Websites
The advertisements on our sites are served by a number of third
party ad serving providers, including DoubleClick, Advertising.com,
Adviva.net (Specific Media), AdRevolver (BlueLithium-Yahoo!),
247realmedia.com and Media Mind, amongst others. The cookies
accompanying the adverts allow them and their advertisers to
monitor the effectiveness of the ads (e.g. by using statistical
analysis cookies) and make the ads more relevant to you (e.g. if
you use our sites from outside of the UK, you may get ads from your
local country). If you would like more information about the
cookies used by the providers listed above, please see their
privacy policies at:
http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/ads/
http://advertising.aol.com/privacy
http://www.specificmedia.co.uk/privacy
http://info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/yahoo/opt_out/targeting/
http://www.247realmedia.com/EN-US/privacy-policy.html
http://www.mediamind.com/privacy-policy
http://www.rubiconproject.com/privacy/
What is Behavioural Marketing?
Behavioural Marketing technology gives users and advertisers a
more valuable and unique experience by delivering advertising and
content that is more relevant to the user.
The system we are using is a type of "onsite behavioural
marketing" which uses cookies to discover general information about
which pages on our sites you visit. It also looks at IP addresses
to add general information about the country, city or region in
which you are located, along with your domain name (e.g. what
internet service provider you use). This information enables you to
be grouped with other people of similar interests and places you in
a "market segment".
We may then display advertisements on the site which we believe
people in your market segment will find relevant. We consider that
this makes the advertising more interesting and useful to you, and
also helps us increase the value we get out of the site and from
our advertisers, and therefore ultimately gives us a greater
ability to invest in great content for the benefit of all our
users.
It is important to note that at no time will we or our service
providers attempt to identify you individually, and at no time do
we know who you are or what pages you individually have been
looking at - we simply aggregate the relevant information to create
the market segments of groups of people. We will at all times seek
to comply with the regulatory framework applicable to onsite
behavioural targeting technology in our implementation of it.
Our "onsite behavioural marketing" functionality is different from
other forms of behavioural targeting in that we only look at your
journey across our websites and we do not use or share data with or
from other websites.
Updating Your Settings
Advertising Network Bodies
The table below shows the 3 main associations that represent
advertising networks. You can visit their websites to opt out
of all cookies served by their members. Typically, they will
scan your device for a few seconds to see what cookies are
currently set and then provide you with the facility to opt out on
an individual basis or completely from all cookies. The image
below provides an illustration of the information that is
presented:
How to opt out of Online Behavioural
Advertising
These are the main Ad networks used on BBC Worldwide
websites:
Auditing our Websites
On a quarterly basis, we conduct an audit of all cookies being
used across the website portfolio.
Further Information
Please contact the
Data
Protection
team at BBC Worldwide if you would like more
information on the cookies that we use and their purposes.
Policy Last Updated: May 2012