How the HBSA uses cookies on its websites

The HBSA does not directly use cookies on its website. However, it does make use of several online tools that do use cookies. This policy explains why we do that.

What are cookies?

Cookies are small text files which a website may put on your computer or mobile device when you first visit a site or page. The cookie will help the website, or another website, to recognise your device the next time you visit. Web beacons or other similar files can also do the same thing. We use the term “cookies” in this policy to refer to all files that collect information in this way.
There are many functions cookies serve. For example, they help some websites remember your username and preferences, analyse how well the website is performing, or even allow the website to recommend content it believes will be most relevant to visitors.
Certain cookies contain personal information – for example, if you click to “remember me” when logging in, a cookie will store your username – but it is worth noting that most browsers will also offer to remember usernames and passwords on many websites.
Most cookies won’t collect information that identifies you, and will instead collect more general information such as how users arrive at and use our websites, or a user’s general location.

What sort of cookies does the HBSA use?

As stated above, the HBSA does not use cookies directly on its website. Here is a list of the applications that do use cookies:
  1. Google Analytics This application collects usage information and analyses how well the website is performing and generic information about who visits it. It is very widely used
  2. Lulu Press Inc. The HBSA does make available electronic downloads of back issues of our publications via Lulu. When you click through Lulu’s website will use cookies
  3. Yahoo. The HBSA Forum is hosted on a Yahoo Groups platform. When you click through Yahoo will use cookies. It will ask you (if you do not have one already) to create a yahoo account. You should familiarise yourself with Yahoo’s privacy and terms if you have concerns.

Can you block cookies?

Cookies help us to get the most out of our website. You may disable the use of cookies within your Browser – please see the ‘Help’ section for your chosen Browser. Please remember that if you do choose to disable cookies, you may find that certain functions within our website do not work properly

Do we track whether users open our emails?

We use Zoho Campaigns to send informative emails to our members. Our emails may contain a single, campaign-unique “web beacon pixel” to tell us whether our emails are opened and verify any clicks through to links within the email. We may use this information for purposes including determining which of our emails are more interesting to members, to query whether members who do not open our emails wish to continue receiving them. You may opt out of receiving these emails by either emailing the membership registrar on membership@hbsa-uk.org or clicking on “opt out” on the foot of the email.

More Information

More detail on how businesses use cookies is available at www.allaboutcookies.org. If you have any queries regarding this Cookie Policy please contact our Data Protection Officer by e-mail at dpo@hbsa-uk.org

This document was last updated on 21 Jan 2018.