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What are cookies?
A cookie is a small set of information that a website may store on your computer for a variety of reasons. Websites create and use cookies but rely on your browser (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Internet Explorer, Safari, etc) to manage them.
We only use cookies that allow the Mouritz website to work properly, to store your preferences, or to monitor how the website is working.
Key points
- We aim to comply fully with the requirements of legislation governing the use of cookies.
- Usage data for monitoring the website is anonymised: we do not track individuals
- We do not share our usage data with third parties
- We do not use third-party or marketing cookies
What can cookies be used for?
Cookies can be used for four main purposes:
- "Essential" or "Strictly necessary" cookies — These are cookies required for a website to work properly in response to your actions or preferences.
Because they are essential, we do not need your explicit consent to use them, although we must tell you about them. - Preferences cookies — These allow a website to remember choices you have made in the past. For example, when we ask if you want to store cookies, your preferences are themselves stored in a cookie. (But note: this is also an essential cookie).
- Analytics or performance cookies — These collect information about how a website is used, such as which pages are visited, which links are clicked on.
Mouritz uses Google Analytics for the sole purpose of improving website functions. None of this information can be used to identify you. It is all aggregated and anonymised and fed back to us as usage reports. The information collected is not accessible to anyone else. Google is our "data processor" i.e. it processes the information on our behalf and has no rights to process it independently. And we do not use Google Analytics Advertising features. - Marketing cookies — These cookies track your online activity to help advertisers. Mouritz does not use Marketing cookies.
Managing cookies
You can decide what cookies to allow on the Mouritz website by stating your cookie preferences. Your preferences are stored (using cookies) so we don't have to keep asking. You can change your preferences at any time. We periodically ask you to reconfirm your preferences or if you have deleted your preference cookie.
Note that if you withdraw consent that you previously gave, we do not delete the cookies that were set previously. You can do this via your browser if you want to.
N.B. As the Mouritz Shop runs on a different software platform from the rest of the mouritz.org website, using different cookies, you may be asked separately for the cookie preferences relating to that part of the website. Apologies for any inconvenience.
You can also control cookies globally via browser settings (i.e. in Firefox, Safari, Edge, Chrome, Internet Explorer or whatever software you use to explore the world-wide web). But if you turn them off globally, this website and many others may not work as you want. You'll certainly be asked each time you visit the Mouritz website whether you will accept cookies, as the cookie that would normally store your preference will not exist.
Browsers also offer options to review what cookies are currently set for individual websites, and to delete some or all of them.
As browsers are constantly being updated, third-party information about them often lags behind the current state of play and can be misleading. So we recommend that, if you want to know what your browser cookie control options are, you search the help pages of your preferred browser for the latest information. For up-to-date information, you are recommended to focus on the official help of the browser and ignore anything from the "community" for the browser. For example, in Firefox you would restrict your search results to "Help Articles Only".
The cookies we might use
(Whether these cookies are used will depend partly on which parts of the site you visit and partly on what cookie preferences you set).
Cookie name | What it's for | How long it lasts | Type of cookie |
Mouritz.org main site: | |||
has_js | Tells the website whether the browser can execute javascript | for the session | essential |
cookie-agreed | Records whether the user has answered the prompt about cookies being set | 100 days | essential |
cookie-agreed-version | Records which version of the cookie-control dialogue was used. If there is a more recent version, the user is asked again for their preferences | 100 days | essential |
cookie-agreed-categories | Records which types of cookies the user is prepared to accept. | 100 days | essential |
_gat_gtag_UA_nnnnnn_1 | Used to control (throttle) the rate at which information is sent to google analytics | 1 second | analytics |
_ga | identifies the device on which the cookie is placed | 2 years | analytics |
_gid | identifies the current session | 24 hours | analytics |
Mouritz Shop (additional cookies): | |||
cookieconsent_preferences_disabled | Identifies any types of cookies which are disabled and which the user will not therefore be asked to consent to | 1 year | essential |
cookieconsent_status | Records the user preference for optional cookies on the Mouritz Shop | 1 year | essential |
OCSESSID | Identifies the current session in the Mouritz Shop | for the session | essential |
currency | Records the default currency used by the Mouritz Shop | 30 days | essential |
language | Records the default language used by the Mouritz Shop | 30 days | essential |
Further information
User-friendly information about cookies is hard to find, partly because cookies have varied functions and are embedded in a considerable amount of technology. Mouritz does not use cookies for the intrusive purposes which cause most concern.
The Wikipedia article on cookies contains a wealth of detail.
https://gdpr.eu/cookies/ contains more accessible information but note that this NOT an official European Union website though it claims to receive EU funding.
Within the EU:
- the use of cookies is governed by the EU General Data Protection Regulations ONLY where cookies comprise personal data;
- not all cookies comprise personal data; BUT
- the use of ALL cookies is governed by the e-Privacy Directive.
Regrettably, the EU does not provide user-friendly information on its own regulations. This is left to the national enforcement/oversight bodies, which may interpret or implement the regulations slightly differently from country to country.
Google has an extensive library of information about its analytics and privacy at https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245?hl=en-GB. It also offers a browser add-in that allows you to turn off analytics cookies across all websites, available from https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. If installed, this would prevent us from monitoring how the Mouritz website is used.
Mouritz Privacy Notice
For further information about privacy issues please see the Mouritz Privacy Notice. For the avoidance of doubt, this page about cookies forms a part of the Privacy Notice.