Richie’s Room – Cookie Policy

Background

What the heck is a cookie?

Let’s start by stating what a cookie is not.  It is not a program.  It doesn’t DO anything.  What it is, is a simple text file that can easily be read by using the Notepad program on your PC.

OK, so what are they for?

When, for the first time, you visit a site that uses cookies, a cookie is stored on your PC.  On subsequent visits to the site your PC will check to see if there is an existing cookie for that site.  If there is it will pass this information back to the site.  Knowing this may enable the site to customise your experience on these subsequent visits.  For example, if you are completing a form or comment box your previous entries may have been stored, enabling you to complete them more quickly this time.

Are they good?

The information stored by cookies can vary and some are quite sophisticated.  They may record how long you spend on each page on a site, what links you click, what items you add to a ‘shopping cart’ and so on.

There is, therefore, huge scope for using cookies to make the experience of visiting a particular site more pleasant and efficient than it might otherwise be.

… or are they bad?

If they are so useful why do they get such bad press?  Well, depending on your outlook, they may seem to be a little ‘Big Brother’ like.  That is, you may just feel that you don’t want people ‘watching’ you, no matter how benign it may be.  And that is perfectly fine, we are all entitled to our own views.

So, what’s the legal position?

The vast majority of websites will use cookies in one way or another.  They work so seamlessly that it is unlikely that you will even have noticed them being used in the background. 

In 2012 the European Union (or “EU”) introduced a law forcing all sites to explicitly seek express permission from users for the use of cookies.  You will undoubtedly have noticed the impact of this – whenever you now visit a site you will (should) be presented with a message asking for your consent for the site to use cookies.

Nothing has changed regarding the cookies themselves – they are still the simple text files referred to above.  The only difference is that sites now need to seek permission for their use.

Richie’s Room and cookies

OK, now that you know a little more about the background of cookies you may be wondering what the position is regarding cookies here at Richie’s Room.

Permission

Firstly, you will notice that, in accordance with EU law, you will be asked for your permission for the use of cookies.  Even if you give your permission you may subsequently withdraw it.

Whatever browser you are using, the provider will be able to give details to you regarding where your cookies are stored and, if you wish, how to delete them.  The most common ones may be found here:

Chrome , Firefox , Internet Explorer , Safari

Usage

Richie’s Room uses cookies for two reasons.  Firstly, to save browsing preferences and to optimize the user’s browsing experience, including efforts to prevent the posting of ‘spam’ in the Comments section of posts. Secondly, for gathering data relating to the use of the Richie’s Room website.  This data gathering enables such things as the monitoring of the volume of traffic to the site.  This, in turn, may have an impact on your browsing experience as it may necessitate optimisation work on the site or even moving to a different hosting service.

Commercial affiliations

This type of service allows Richie’s Room to display advertisements for third-party products or services. These can be displayed either as advertising links or as banners using various kinds of graphics.

Clicks on these items are tracked by the third-party services listed below and are shared with Richie’s Room.

For details of which data are collected, please refer to the privacy policy of each service.

Affiliates:

Richie’s Room is an Amazon Associate.  If you click on an Amazon link on this site, Amazon will create a cookie to reflect this.  If you subsequently make a purchase then Richie’s Room will receive a commission.  Thank you!

Further information

The Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”) has further information which you may find helpful. The information may be found here.

Privacy Policy

For details of the privacy policy please see here.

Contact

If you have any queries in relation to this cookie policy, please do not hesitate to get in touch.  Contact can be made using richie@richiesroom.com.