This Cookies Policy sets out the basis on which we, The Association of Investment Companies, use cookies and similar technologies on or in relation to our website, https://www.theaic.co.uk (our website). This Cookies Policy was last updated on 30th June 2023.
‘Essential’ cookies are automatically placed on your computer or device when you access our website or take certain actions on our website. ‘Non-essential’ cookies and other technologies are only placed on your computer or device if you have consented to us doing so. For information on the difference between essential and non-essential cookies, see the section below entitled About cookies.
For information on how you consent and how you can withdraw your consent to us placing non-essential cookies and other technologies on your computer or device, see the section below entitled How to accept or reject cookies.
Contents
- About cookies
- List of cookies used
- Essential cookies
- Non-essential cookies
- Web beacons
- How to accept or reject cookies
- Copyright
About cookies
What are cookies?
Cookies are small data files sent by a website’s server to a web browser, processor memory or hard drive and stored there. They can be used for a range of different purposes, such as customising a website for a particular user, helping a user navigate a website, improving that user’s website experience, and storing that user’s preferences and login information.
Essential and non-essential cookies
Cookies can be classified as either ‘essential’ or ‘non-essential’.
Essential (or necessary) cookies: these are cookies that are either:
- used solely to carry out or facilitate the transmission of communications over a network; or
- strictly necessary to provide an online service (e.g. our website or a service on our website) which you have requested.
Non-essential cookies: these are any cookies that do not fall within the definition of essential cookies, such as cookies used to analyse your behaviour on a website (‘analytical’ cookies) or cookies used to display advertisements to you (‘advertising’ cookies).
Session and persistent cookies
Cookies can be classified as either ‘session’ or ‘persistent’, depending on how long they last after they are placed on your browser.
Session cookies: session cookies last for as long as you keep your browser open. They expire when you close your browser.
Persistent cookies: persistent cookies expire at a fixed point in time or if you manually delete them from your browser, whichever occurs first.
First and third party cookies
Cookies can be classified as ‘first party’ or ‘third party’.
First party cookies: these are cookies placed on your device by our website domain.
Third party cookies: these are cookies placed on your device by third party website domains.
If you require further information about cookies in general, please visit www.allaboutcookies.org
We use the following cookies on or in relation to our website:
| Cookie name | Purpose | Category | Duration | First party or third party cookie? | Session or persistent? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| _ga | Google analytics. Used to distinguish users. | Analytical | Two years | First | Persistent |
| _gat | Google analytics. Used to throttle request rate. | Analytical | Session | First | Session |
| _gid | Google analytics. Used to distinguish users. | Analytical | 24 hours | First | Persistent |
| _qca | Used to remember cookie consent selection | Essential | 13 months | First | Persistent |
| euconsent | Used to remember cookie consent selection | Essential | 14 months | First | Persistent |
| in_or | LinkedIn. This cookie registers statistical data on users' behaviour on the website. | Analytical | 24 hours | First | Persistent |
| hjsessionuser | Hotjar. Collects statistics on the visitor's visits to the website. | Analytical | 1 year | First | Persistent |
| _hjIncludedI nSessionSam ple | Hotjar. Collects statistics on the visitor's visits to the website. | Analytical | Session | First | Session |
| NID | This cookie is used by Google to set each of its users’ preferred language preferences. | Advertising / social media | 6 months | Third | Persistent |
| SOCS | This cookie is used by Google to remember cookie preferences. | Advertising / social media | 13 months | Third | Persistent |
| AEC | This cookie ensures that requests within a browsing session are made by the user, and not by other sites | Advertising / social media | 6 months | Third | Persistent |
| CONSENT | This cookie is used by Google to remember cookie preferences. | Advertising / social media | 2 years | Third | Persistent |
Essential cookies
- Legal basis for processing: we process information about you contained in or obtained from essential cookies in our legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f) of the General Data Protection Regulation).
- Legitimate interests: ensuring our site functions properly and providing you with online services you have requested.
Non-essential cookies
We use the following types of non-essential cookies on our website:
- Functional cookies
- Analytical (or performance) cookies
- Targeting (or advertising) cookies
- Functional cookies
These are cookies that are designed for purposes such as enhancing a website’s functionality. These are either not strictly essential for the website or functionality which you have requested to work, or are cookies which serve non-essential purposes in addition to their essential purpose.
Processing information about you contained in or obtained from functional cookies
- Legal basis for processing: we process information about you contained in or obtained from functional cookies in our legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f) of the General Data Protection Regulation). We will only process such personal information if you have consented to us placing cookies on your computer or device.
- Legitimate interests: checking whether our Hotjar analytical tool will work and ensuring YouTube videos on our website display as efficiently as possible.
- Analytical (or performance) cookies
Analytical (or performance) cookies track and gather data about what a user does on a website. These cookies are not essential for our website or its functionality to work.
Processing information about you contained in or obtained from analytical cookies
- Legal basis for processing: we process information about you contained in or obtained from analytical cookies in our legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f) of the General Data Protection Regulation).
- Legitimate interests: analysing how individuals use our website to help us improve our website and business. For further information on how we use the information gathered from our use of analytical cookies, please see our privacy policy, which is available here: https://www.theaic.co.uk/privacy-policy.
Web beacons
We, and our email marketing partners, embed web beacons in our marketing emails (which includes our E-Newsletters such as Compass and Spotlight). Web beacons are small GIF image files which enable us to track your receipt of our marketing emails, how often you view our adverts or website pages, your location, IP address and browser information. Web beacons are activated whenever you open a marketing email or access a page on our website which contains a web beacon. Web beacons transmit data when you view them but are not capable of accessing any other information on your computer. Web beacons are not stored on your hard drive unless you download a GIF image containing them.
Some (but not all) browsers enable you to restrict the use of web beacons by either preventing them from sending information back to their source (for example, when you choose browser settings that block cookies and trackers), or by not accessing the images containing them (for example, if you select a ‘do not display images (in emails)’ setting in your email server).
Accepting/rejecting cookies
There are a number of different ways in which you can accept or reject some or all cookies. Some of the main methods of doing so are described below:
You are welcome to block the use of some or all of the cookies we use on our website. However, please be aware that doing so may impair our website and its functionality or may even render some or all of it unusable.
You can find more detailed information about cookies and adjusting your browser settings by visiting www.allaboutcookies.org
Cookie control tool
You can accept or reject non-essential cookies by using our cookie management tool, which will pop up when you first visit our website and can otherwise be accessed by clicking on ‘Privacy’ in the bottom right hand corner of our website.
Browser settings
You can accept or reject some or all cookies (for example, blocking all third party cookies) by adjusting your browser settings. If you do not know how to do this, the links below set out information about how to change your browser settings for some of the most commonly used web browsers:
- Google Chrome: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95647?hl=en-GB
- Mozilla Firefox: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/delete-browsing-search-download-history-firefox?redirectlocale=en-US&redirectslug=Clear+Recent+History
- Microsoft Internet Explorer: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/278835/how-to-delete-cookie-files-in-internet-explorer
- Apple Safari: https://support.apple.com/kb/PH5042?locale=en_US
Some browsers, such as Chrome and Firefox, allow you to change your settings to browse in ‘incognito’ mode, limiting the amount of data placed on your machine and automatically deleting any persistent cookies placed on your device when you finish your browsing session. There are also many third party applications which you can add to your browser to block or manage cookies.
Existing cookies
To clear cookies that have previously been placed on your browser, you should select the option to clear your browsing history and ensure that the option to delete or clear cookies is included when you do so. You should be aware that clearing all cookies from your browser will also delete any cookies that are storing your preferences, for example, whether you have accepted cookies on a website or any cookies that are blocking other cookies.
S2S Tracking with Dianomi
To optimize our advertising efforts and enhance the success of our campaigns in driving engagement and attendance at AIC events, we utilize S2S (Server-to-Server) tracking in partnership with Dianomi. Unlike traditional cookie-based tracking, S2S tracking operates without the need for browser cookies, providing a more streamlined and privacy-conscious approach.
When users interact with our that ads that we place with third-parties, a unique identifier (ID) for each click is generated, which is then transmitted to Dianomi via the URL. Dianomi uses this ID to notify us when specific events occur as a result of those clicks. This allows us to accurately track and measure the effectiveness of our campaigns and is only applied if a user accesses our site through these means.
The data collected through this process is stored in secure databases. This includes the collection of IP addresses, which are initially used to verify whether the click is likely to have originated from a human user or from bot traffic. For reporting and analysis, the IP address is subsequently aggregated and anonymised to ensure user privacy.
We use the anonymised and aggregated data to generate conversion reports, which help us and our advertisers understand the performance of our campaigns without compromising individual privacy. The collection of IP addresses by Dianomi is conducted for legitimate interests, specifically for fraud detection, and these addresses are not used for analytics until they have been anonymised.
Copyright
The copyright in this Cookies Policy is either owned by, or licensed to, us and is protected by copyright laws around the world and copyright protection software. All intellectual property rights in this document are reserved.
