Hit Cookie Overview
The EU announced new regulations about Cookies on 20th May 2011 stating that website owners must gain visitor’s consent if they want to use cookies on their sites.
On Hit we use cookies and we want to explain the cookies we use and why we use them. We don't use many cookies, our cookies are not intrusive and they do not track any personal information that would allow someone to identify you or your online activities.
Cookies are not a bad thing, they are a vital, necessary, useful and very helpful part of the internet, however, some people have used cookies to do things that allow an individual to be identified and to target them with information. We don't do this.
Because some people have abused cookies, the EU has made it law that all websites using cookies must inform the user about them and get their consent to use them.
What Cookies are used on Hit?
On Hit we use three types of very simple cookies that are industry standard, widely used and do not track anything that would make any user of our site personally identifiable. The types of cookie we use are:
- Site Operation Cookies - The reason why cookies exist is because your web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari etc.) doesn't remember
anything when it leaves one page and moves to the next page. If you make a choice on one web page like adding a product to your shopping
basket, as soon as you leave that page and go to any other web page, your browser will have no record of the item you added to your basket.
This is why we have cookies. Cookies are small files that we use to record these choices and settings so that our website can operate. If we didn't use cookies, you simply would not be able to use our site, or any site, to shop for stuff.
These Site Operation Cookies are also called 'Session Cookies' because they only last until you close your web browser. Once you close Internet Explorer or Firefox or whichever web browser you are using, your browsing session ends and these session cookies are removed. There is no chance that they will linger on and allow people to get any information about what you do. - Analytics Cookies - These cookies help us to be aware of the traffic that visits our site and to understand it. It lets us see things like, how many people are visiting us and what pages they like to look at most. We use Google Analytics to do this, the same as over 60% of the top 10,000 and almost 15 million other websites1.
- Social Cookies - Social networking using Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and many, many other social networking sites is very popular
with our customers (and over 900 million people worldwide2). We have some of the more popular social networking buttons
on our site allowing customers to tell their social network friends about things they have seen or done on our site.
Cookie Details
The following is a list of the actual cookies used on Hit
| Type | Name | Origin | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Party | Basket | Hit | One of our Site Operation cookies. This Session Cookie only lasts as long as your browser is open and it is necessary for you to be able to buy items from our site. This
cookie is removed as soon as you close your browser. It is used to remember information from one web page to the next, for example, when you buy something on one page, we need to store the item you have bought so that we can recall it when you go to the checkout to pay for it. |
| 1st Party | Currency | Hit | One of our Site Operation cookies. This cookie is created if you change the currency option when using our site. It simply stores which currency you are currently browsing the site in. |
| 1st Party | cookie_level | Hit | This cookie has just been introduced to implement the EU cookie law. It lets us keep track of the level of cookies you have chosen to accept. |
| 3rd Party | __utma, __utmb, __utmc, __utmz |
Google Analytics | We (and LOTS of other sites) use Google Analytics to get information on the number of people that come to our site and what pages they look at. This
helps us understand how our site is used, which lets us make sure that it keeps running smoothly. You can read Google's privacy policy here: google.com/analytics/learn/privacy.html. |
| 3rd Party | _dw_p, _dw_s, _dw_a | Facebook uses a cookie to help determine who is sharing comments about content on or website. You can read Facebook's privacy policy at facebook.com/about/privacy/ |
More Information
For more information about cookies and the EU Cookie Requlations, you can visit the sites below.
- Cookies
- The Internet Advertising Bureau UK's (IAB) website youronlinechoices.com answers frequently asked questions about cookies.
- youronlinechoices.com/uk/faqs#17
- EU Cookie Regulation
- The official Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) notice about the EU Cookie Regulations and their enforcement in the UK.
- https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-pecr/cookies-and-similar-technologies/