What Are Cookies
A cookie (sometimes known as web cookie, browser cookie or html cookie) is a small amount of data (<4Kb) that is sent to your computer or web-enabled device (hereafter referred to as a "device") browser from a website's server. The cookie can include a unique identifier within it. As is common practice with almost all professional websites this site uses cookies to improve your experience. This page describes what information they gather, how we use it and why we sometimes need to store these cookies. We will also share how you can prevent these cookies from being stored however this may downgrade or 'break' certain elements of the sites functionality.
For more general information on cookies see the Wikipedia article on HTTP Cookies...
Where does the cookie go?
The cookie is stored on your device's hard drive (this is often called "setting a cookie"). Each website that wishes to send you its cookie can only do so if your device's web browser preferences, that you can set personally, are set to allow this. To protect your privacy your device browser only permits a website to access the cookies it has sent to you, not the cookies sent to you by other websites. Many websites set one or more cookies to track online traffic through their website.
How long will cookies stay on my device?
The length of time a cookie will stay on your computer or mobile device depends on whether it is a “persistent” or “session” cookie. Session cookies will only stay on your device until you stop browsing. Persistent cookies stay on your computer or mobile device until they expire or are deleted.
How We Use Cookies
We use cookies for a variety of reasons detailed below. Unfortunately in most cases there are no industry standard options for disabling cookies without completely disabling the functionality and features they add to this site. It is recommended that you leave on all cookies if you are not sure whether you need them or not in case they are used to provide a service that you use.
Computational Genomics Lab and MetaWater hosted websites, set cookies to store information about your:
- Anonymous user tracking across our sites.
- Online preferences that allow us to tailor our websites to your data requirements.
- State information and access rights, i.e. your ability to login to restricted services and the duration of that login.
- Web site usage to report to our funding agencies how often websites are visited by both academic and lay visitors.
Disabling Cookies
Users can set their device browsers to accept all cookies, to notify them when a cookie is issued, or not to receive cookies at any time. The last of these means that certain personalised features cannot then be provided to that user and accordingly they may not be able to take full advantage of all of the website's features. Each browser is different, so check the "Help" menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences.
MetaWater web site does not use cookies to collect personally identifiable information about you. However, if you wish to restrict or block the cookies which are set by our websites, or indeed any other website, you can do this through your browser settings. The Help function within your browser should tell you how. Be aware that disabling cookies will affect the functionality of this and many other websites that you visit. Disabling cookies will usually result in also disabling certain functionality and features of the this site. Therefore it is recommended that you do not disable cookies.
Alternatively, you may wish to visit www.aboutcookies.org which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of browsers. You will also find details on how to delete cookies from your computer as well as more general information about cookies. For information on how to do this on the browser of your mobile phone you will need to refer to your handset manual.
The Cookies We Set
If you create an account with us then we will use cookies for the management of the signup process and general administration. These cookies will usually be deleted when you log out however in some cases they may remain afterwards to remember your site preferences when logged out.
We use cookies when you are logged in so that we can remember this fact. This prevents you from having to log in every single time you visit a new page. These cookies are typically removed or cleared when you log out to ensure that you can only access restricted features and areas when logged in.
In order to provide you with a great experience on this site we provide the functionality to set your preferences for how this site runs when you use it. In order to remember your preferences we need to set cookies so that this information can be called whenever you interact with a page is affected by your preferences.
Third Party Cookies And Opting Out
First-party cookies are cookies that belong to this web site, third-party cookies are cookies that another party places on your device through our Service. In some special cases we also use cookies provided by trusted third parties. The following section details which third party cookies you might encounter through this site.
This site uses Google Analytics which is one of the most widespread and trusted analytics solution on the web for helping us to understand how you use the site and ways that we can improve your experience. These cookies may track things such as how long you spend on the site and the pages that you visit so we can continue to produce engaging content.
For more information on Google Analytics cookies, see the official Google Analytics page. Be aware that you will still have a cookie when opting out of Google Analysis. This cookie tells GA that you opted out. Sorry, it doesn't work without.
More Information
Hopefully that has clarified things for you and as was previously mentioned if there is something that you aren't sure whether you need or not it's usually safer to leave cookies enabled in case it does interact with one of the features you use on our site. However if you are still looking for more information then you can contact us?.
Related links
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy
- http://lxle.net/privacy-policy/
- https://developers.google.com/analytics/resources/concepts/gaConceptsCookies
- http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/
Changes
We reserve the right to change this Cookie Privacy Policy at any time. All changes will be posted to this page.
Coda
This web page was written by looking at different disclaimer, copyright and privacy policies of different web sites, including among others Free Software Foundation, Creative Commons, WikiMedia Foundation, and other sources from public universities and research labs. Some sentences were adapted from the sources trying to keep as much as possible their legal meaning.