Privacy Policy
The use of our website is usually possible without providing personal information. As far as personal data (such as name, address or email address) is stored on our sides, this is as far as possible on a voluntary basis. These data will not be consented to third parties, if you don’t wish so.
We point out that data transmission over the Internet (eg communication by e-mail) can have security gaps. A complete protection of data against access by third parties is not possible.
The use of the published contact data (e.g. in the imprint) for sending unsolicited advertisements and information materials by third parties is hereby expressly excluded. The site operators reserve the right to take legal action in case of unsolicited advertising, such as spam e-mails.
We point out that data transmission over the Internet (eg communication by e-mail) can have security gaps. A complete protection of data against access by third parties is not possible.
The use of the published contact data (e.g. in the imprint) for sending unsolicited advertisements and information materials by third parties is hereby expressly excluded. The site operators reserve the right to take legal action in case of unsolicited advertising, such as spam e-mails.
This Policy covers our use of cookies, IP addresses, and other technologies.
What are Cookies?
Cookies and other online tracking technologies are small bits of data or code that are used to identify your devices when you use and interact with our websites and other services. They are often used for remembering your preferences, to identify popular news stories, and remember you’re logged in, allowing you to comment on stories.
What Cookies do we use and how do we use them?
Essential cookies and similar technologies
These are vital for the running of our services on our websites and apps. Without the use of these cookies parts of our websites would not function. For example, Times+ uses cookies to help us identify which of our readers have a subscription in order to access content they are entitled to on the website. We use these cookies to tell if you’re logged in to your account, which allows extra functionality, such as making comments on stories.
Analytics cookies and similar technologies
These collect information about your use of our websites and apps, and enable us to improve the way it works. For example, analytics cookies show us which are the most frequently visited pages on The Sun or The Times websites allowing us to provide the most popular news articles further up the page. They help us record how you interact with our websites, such as how you navigate around pages and from page to page; identifying improvements we can make to the customer journey. They also help identify any difficulties you have accessing our services, so we can fix any problems. Additionally these cookies allow us to see overall patterns of usage at an aggregated level.
Functional/preference cookies and similar technologies
These cookies collect information about your choices and preferences, and allow us to remember things like language, your username (so you can log in faster), text size, and location, so we can show you relevant content to where you are. They allow us to customize the services you have accessed. We also use these cookies to provide you with services such as video clips.
Tracking, advertising cookies and similar technologies
We use these types of technologies to provide advertisements that are more relevant to your interests. This can be done by delivering online adverts based your previous web browsing activity, known as “online behavioural advertising” (OBA). Cookies are placed on your browser which will remember the websites you have visited. Advertising based on what you have been looking at is then displayed to you when you visit websites who use the same advertising networks.
For example: You may be doing online research in order to buy a bicycle, and read a number of articles about bikes on various websites. As you browse those sites a cookie from an advertising network would be placed in your browser. It would remember that you had visited several websites related to cycling. Then, when you visited another website in the same advertising network, the website could show you an advert related to cycling.
We may also use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with adverts based on your location, offers you click on, and other similar interactions with our websites and apps.
Google Analytics
This website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google Inc., to enable an analysis of your use of the website. The information generated by the use of Google Analytics about your use of the website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to a server of Google Inc. in the USA and stored there. Google will use this information to analyze the use of the site by anonymous evaluations and charts on number of visits, number of pages viewed per user etc. are created. We use these exclusively for our own market research and especially the optimization and tailoring our websites. More information about the technology used by Google to see http://www.google.com/analytics.
We also use cookies and similar technologies:
When you access and interact with our services cookies may collect certain information about those visits. For example, in order to permit your connection to our websites, our servers receive and record information about your computer, device, and browser, including potentially your IP address, browser type, other software or hardware information, and your geographic location.
If you access our services from a mobile device
We may collect a unique device identifier assigned to that device, geo-location data, and other transactional information for that device. We may also use the unique identifier to validate free trials, for example.
Usage of services
To collect, use and store information about your usage of our services, websites and apps, such as pages you have visited, content you have viewed, search queries you have run, and advertisements you have seen or interacted with.
To provide relevant content
The content on our websites and in our communications with you may be adjusted depending on what we know about the content, products and services that you like. This means we can highlight content and articles that we believe will be of interest to you. We provide personalisation by using cookies, IP addresses, web beacons, URL tracking and mobile app settings.
Managing cookies
Most modern browsers are set to accept cookies by default, but you can change your settings to notify you when a cookie is being set or updated, or to block cookies altogether. Please consult the “Help” section of your browser.
Controlling OBA cookies
The „Your Online Choices“ website http://www.youronlinechoices.com provides more information about controlling cookies. It also provides an easy way to opt out of behavioural advertising from each (or all) of the networks represented by the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance http://www.youronlinechoices.com/uk/your-ad-choices.