How we use cookies
A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer’s hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.
We use traffic log cookies to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyse data about web page traffic and improve our website in order to tailor it to customer needs.
By enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not, we can use the data to improve your experience on our website, and we may customise pages that may be of interest to you. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us. You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.
Strictly necessary cookies
These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website.
OptanonConsent – This cookie is set by the cookie compliance solution from OneTrust. It stores information about the categories of cookies the site uses and whether visitors have given or withdrawn consent for the use of each category. This enables site owners to prevent cookies in each category from being set in the users browser, when consent is not given. The cookie has a normal lifespan of one year, so that returning visitors to the site will have their preferences remembered. It contains no information that can identify the site visitor. Lifespan: PERSISTENT. Host: staroutico.com
OptanonAlertBoxClosed – This cookie is set by websites using certain versions of the cookie law compliance solution from OneTrust. It is set after visitors have seen a cookie information notice and in some cases only when they actively close the notice down. It enables the website not to show the message more than once to a user. The cookie has a one year lifespan and contains no personal information. Lifespan: PERSISTENT. Host: staroutico.com
__cfduid – This domain is owned by OneTrust, a privacy management software which helps organizations achieve compliance with global regulations. Lifespan: PERSISTENT. Host: onetrust.com
eupubconsent – This cookie is used by the IAB Europe Transparency & Consent Framework to store the user’s consent to the data collection Purposes. The cookie holds an encrypted consent string that vendors participating in the framework can read and determine the user’s consent. Lifespan: PERSISTENT. Host: staroutico.com
Performance / Analytics cookies
They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.
_ga – This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics – which is a significant update to Google’s more commonly used analytics service. This cookie is used to distinguish unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier. It is included in each page request in a site and used to calculate visitor, session and campaign data for the sites analytics reports. By default it is set to expire after 2 years, although this is customisable by website owners. Lifespan: PERSISTENT. Host: staroutico.com
_gid – This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics. This appears to be a new cookie and as of Spring 2017 no information is available from Google. It appears to store and update a unique value for each page visited. Lifespan: PERSISTENT. Host: staroutico.com
_gat_UA-177953408-1 – This is a pattern type cookie set by Google Analytics, where the pattern element on the name contains the unique identity number of the account or website it relates to. It appears to be a variation of the _gat cookie which is used to limit the amount of data recorded by Google on high traffic volume websites. Lifespan: PERSISTENT. Host: staroutico.com
_gat_UA-177953408-1 – This is a pattern type cookie set by Google Analytics, where the pattern element on the name contains the unique identity number of the account or website it relates to. It appears to be a variation of the _gat cookie which is used to limit the amount of data recorded by Google on high traffic volume websites. Lifespan: PERSISTENT. Host: staroutico.com
_gid – This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics. This appears to be a new cookie and as of Spring 2017 no information is available from Google. It appears to store and update a unique value for each page visited. Lifespan: PERSISTENT. Host: staroutico.com
cusid – This cookie names is associated with web analytics software and services provided by ClickDimensions. It is a unqique user session identifier to track page visits on the site for up to 30 minutes. Lifespan: PERSISTENT. Host: staroutico.com
Functional cookies
These are used to recognise you when you return to our website and to remember settings to help improve your visit.
cuvon – This cookie is used to determine unique visitors to the site and it is updated with each page view. Additionally, this cookie is provided with a unique ID that the application uses to ensure both the validity and accessibility of the cookie as an extra security measure. Expires after 30 minutes. Lifespan: PERSISTENT. Host: outico.com
_uetvid – Used for local storage for the site.
cusid – This cookie is used to establish and continue a user session with the site. When a visitor views a page on the site, the script code attempts to update this cookie. If it does not find the cookie, a new one is written and a new session is established. Each time a user visits a different page on the site, this cookie is updated to expire in 30 minutes, thus continuing a single session for as long as user activity continues within 30-minute intervals. Expires after 30 minutes. Lifespan: PERSISTENT. Host: outico.com
Targeting cookies
These cookies record your visit to our website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. These are linked to services provided by third parties, such as ‘Like’ and ‘Share’ buttons. The third party often provides these services in return for recognising that you have visited our website.
MUID – This domain is owned by Mircosoft – it is the site for the search engine Bing. Lifespan: PERSISTANT. Host: bing.com
_uetsid – This cookie is used by Bing to determine what ads should be shown that may be relevant to the end user perusing the site. Lifespan: PERSISTANT. Host: www.staroutico.com
_uetsid – This cookie is used by Bing to determine what ads should be shown that may be relevant to the end user perusing the site. Lifespan: PERSISTANT. Host: staroutico.com
_uetvid – Universal Event Tracking (UET) is a mechanism for advertisers to report user activity on their websites to Microsoft Advertising by installing one site-wide tag. Lifespan: PERSISTANT. Host: www.staroutico.com
_sp_xxxxxxxxxx – Snowplow Lead Intelligence Reports. Used to capture how users interact with our website. Lifespan: PERSISTANT. Host: d1fc8wv8zag5ca.cloudfront.net
Cusid – This Click Dimensions cookie is used to establish and continue a user session with the site. When a visitor views a page on the site, the script code attempts to update this cookie. If it does not find the cookie, a new one is written and a new session is established. Each time a user visits a different page on the site, this cookie is updated to expire in 30 minutes, thus continuing a single session for as long as user activity continues within 30-minute intervals. Expires after 30 minutes. Lifespan: PERSISTANT. Host: outico.com
Facebook – As a third party host provider, it mostly collects data on the interests of users via widgets such as the ‘Like’ button found on many websites. This is used to serve targeted advertising to its users when logged into its services. In 2014 it also started serving up behaviourally targeted advertising on other websites, similar to most dedicated online marketing companies. Lifespan: Session. Host: facebook.com
lang – This domain is owned by LinkedIn, the business networking platform. It typically acts as a third party host where website owners have placed one of its content sharing buttons in their pages, although its content and services can be embedded in other ways. Although such buttons add functionality to the website they are on, cookies are set regardless of whether or not the visitor has an active Linkedin profile, or agreed to their terms and conditions. For this reason it is classified as a primarily tracking/targeting domain. Lifespan: Session. Host: linkedin.com
bcookie – This domain is owned by LinkedIn, the business networking platform. It typically acts as a third party host where website owners have placed one of its content sharing buttons in their pages, although its content and services can be embedded in other ways. Although such buttons add functionality to the website they are on, cookies are set regardless of whether or not the visitor has an active Linkedin profile, or agreed to their terms and conditions. For this reason it is classified as a primarily tracking/targeting domain. Lifespan: Persistent. Host: linkedin.com
_fbp – Used by Facebook to deliver a series of advertisement products such as real time bidding from third party advertisers. Lifespan: PERSISTANT. Host: www.staroutico.com
bscookie – This domain is owned by LinkedIn, the business networking platform. It typically acts as a third party host where website owners have placed one of its content sharing buttons in their pages, although its content and services can be embedded in other ways. Although such buttons add functionality to the website they are on, cookies are set regardless of whether or not the visitor has an active Linkedin profile, or agreed to their terms and conditions. For this reason it is classified as a primarily tracking/targeting domain. Lifespan: Persistent. Host: linkedin.com.
fr – Contains browser and user unique ID combination, used for targeted advertising. Lifespan: Persistent. Host: facebook.com.
lidc / li_gc / AnalyticsSyncHistory / UserMatchHistory – This domain is owned by LinkedIn, the business networking platform. It typically acts as a third party host where website owners have placed one of its content sharing buttons in their pages, although its content and services can be embedded in other ways. Although such buttons add functionality to the website they are on, cookies are set regardless of whether or not the visitor has an active Linkedin profile, or agreed to their terms and conditions. For this reason it is classified as a primarily tracking/targeting domain. Lifespan: Persistent. Host: linkedin.com.
dmSessionID – This cookie name is associated with services from UK email marketing company DotMailer. Their software placed on a website enables the owners to track when email campaign recipients land on the target website, which enables monitoring of the effectiveness of a campaign. This cookie is a short lived session identifier. Lifespan: Persistent. Host: staroutico.com.
recordID – This cookie name is associated with services from UK email marketing company DotMailer. Their software placed on a website enables the owners to track when email campaign recipients land on the target website, which enables monitoring of the effectiveness of a campaign. This cookie is a unique user identifier, enabling persistent linking of behaviour on the site to a particular user and email campaign response. Lifespan: Persistent. Host: staroutico.com.
cuvid – This cookie is used to determine unique visitors to the site and it is updated with each page view. Additionally, this cookie is provided with a unique ID that the application uses to ensure both the validity and accessibility of the cookie as an extra security measure. Lifespan: Persistent. Host: outico.com.
Third party cookies
We use cookies served by third parties in order to improve our website; personalise your experience; and understand how our website is used.
Please note that third parties (including, for example, advertising networks and providers of external services like web traffic analysis services) may also use cookies, over which we have no control. These cookies are likely to be analytical/performance cookies or targeting cookies.
Our site also includes embedded ‘share’ buttons to enable users of the site to easily share articles through a number of popular social networks, for example, Facebook or Twitter. These websites may set a cookie if you click through. We do not control the dissemination of these cookies and you should check the relevant third-party website for more information about these.
