Cookies policy
This Cookies Policy sets out the basis on which we, Witan Investment Trust plc, use cookies and similar technologies on or in relation to our website, www.witan.com (our website). This Cookies Policy is effective from 25 May 2018.
‘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
- How to accept or reject 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 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:
| Name of Cookie | Category | Expiry Time | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| AWSALB | Strictly Necessary | 6 days | AWS ELB application load balancer |
| AWSALBCORS | Strictly Necessary | 6 days | This cookie is managed by AWS and is used for load balancing. |
| AWSALBTGCORS | Strictly Necessary | 7 days | AWS Application Load Balancer Cookie. Load Balancing Cookie: It includes the same information as the original stickiness cookie plus this SameSite attribute. |
| AWSALBTG | Strictly Necessary | 7 days | AWS Application Load Balancer Cookie. Load Balancing Cookie: Used to encode information about the selected target group. |
| __CookieConsent | Strictly Necessary | 0 days | Cookie Consent is a free JavaScript plugin for alerting users about the use of cookies on your website. It is designed to help you comply with the hideous EU Cookie Law and not make you want to hurt yourself in the process. So we made it fast, free, and relatively painless. |
| __CookieConsentV300 | Strictly Necessary | 180 days | __CookieConsent V300 cookie is a plugin used to comply with EU guideline. |
| _gid | Functionality/Targeting | 1 day | This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics. This appears to be a new cookie and as of Spring 2017 no information is available from Google. It appears to store and update a unique value for each page visited. |
| _gcl_au | Functionality/Targeting | 2 months | Google conversion tracking cookie. |
| _ga | Functionality/Targeting | 2 years | This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics - which is a significant update to Google's more commonly used analytics service. This cookie is used to distinguish unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier. It is included in each page request in a site and used to calculate visitor, session and campaign data for the sites analytics reports. By default it is set to expire after 2 years, although this is customisable by website owners. |
| _gat_UA-5374122-3 | Functionality/Targeting | 0 days | This is a pattern type cookie set by Google Analytics, where the pattern element on the name contains the unique identity number of the account or website it relates to. It appears to be a variation of the _gat cookie which is used to limit the amount of data recorded by Google on high traffic volume websites. |
| _ga_B7Y4S91LY9 | Functionality/Targeting | 729 days | A Google Analytics cookie used to persist session state, collect information about how visitors use our site. This information is used to compile reports and to help improve the site. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, marketing performance, where visitors have come to the site from and the pages they visited. |
| ASP.NET_SessionId | Strictly Necessary | End of session | ASP.Net_SessionId is a Microsoft cookie which is used to identify the users session on the server. The session is an area on the server which can be used to store data in between HTTP requests. ASP.NET_SessionId is created by the webserver when the session starts so in the next requests, the Request Header has that ASP.NET_SessionId and it is the same as the Response Header. This ASP.NET_SessionId will be used to identify the specific user session and ensures that this request is from the same client that created the previous request. |
| ak_bmsc | Strictly Necessary | End of session | An Akamai bot manager security cookie used by Akamai to optimize site performance and security. Used by Akamai to optimize site performance and security. This cookie is used by Akamai to optimize site security by distinguishing between humans and bots. |
| _lfa | Performance | 720 days | Used in context with identifying company visitors to the website. The Leadfeeder cookie collects the behavioral data of all visitors from companies. The cookie registers data such as IP addresses, visitor sources, time spent on the website, and page requests for the visit. Data is processed where it pertains to company visitors and is not processed further for individual visitors. |
| _fbp | Targeting | 90 Days | Used by Facebook, this cookie is used to deliver a series of advertisement products such as real-time bidding from third-party advertisers. |
| __adroll_fpc | Targeting | 1 Year | This cookie is used to identify the visitor across visits and devices. It is used by real-time bidding for advertisers to present relevant advertisement. |
| __adroll_consent | Targeting | 1 Year | This cookie is used to identify the visitor across visits and devices. It is used by real-time bidding for advertisers to present relevant advertisement. |
| __adroll_consent_params | Targeting | End of session | This cookie is used to identify the visitor across visits and devices. It is used by real-time bidding for advertisers to present relevant advertisement. |
| __ar_v4 | Targeting | 1 Year | This cookie is associated with the DoubleClick advertising service from Google. Helps with tracking conversion rates for ads. |
| _dlt | Targeting | End of session | Majorly associated with Google's real-time bidding advertising exchange, the main purpose of this cookie is targeting. The cookie sets a unique ID for each session. This allows the website to obtain data on visitor behavior for statistical purposes. |
| _hluid | Targeting | 365 days | Provided by Hubspot, this cookie is used for in-app usage tracking to identify the visitor across visits and devices. This allows the website to present the visitor with relevant advertisements. The service is provided by third-party advertisement hubs, which facilitate real-time bidding for advertisers. |
| AID | Targeting | 365 days | Associated with Google accounts, this cookie from Google Analytics is used to link your activity across devices if you’ve previously signed into your Google account on another device. Based on this, the ads you see on your devices are coordinated and conversion events are measured as well. |
| ajs_anonymous_id | Performance/ Targeting | 365 days | A Segment IO cookie is used to identify known users and track their site activity. Also, this cookie is used to count how many times a website has been visited by different visitors - this is done by assigning the visitor an ID, so the visitor does not get registered twice. Investis use this cookie to add user details on CI Dashboard. |
| _conv_r | Targeting | 180 days | Provided by Convert, this cookie holds the referral data for the current visitor. It is overwritten each time a visitor comes from a new referrer or source. The cookie contains information like source name, referral medium, and referral type. |
| ajs_group_id | Functionality/ Targeting | 365 days | A Segment IO cookie is used to identify known users and track their site activity. This is used to group visits by a different website and the user segmentation can be used to target larger groups. Investis use this cookie to add user details on CI Dashboard. |
| _Secure-3PSID | Targeting | 720 days | Used by Google Analytics for targeting purposes to build a profile of the website visitor's interests to show relevant & personalized Google advertising. Builds a profile of website visitor interests to show relevant and personalized ads through retargeting. |
| _Secure-3PSIDCC | Targeting | 720 days | Used by Google Analytics for targeting purposes to build a profile of the website visitor's interests to show relevant & personalized Google advertising. Builds a profile of website visitor interests to show relevant and personalized ads through retargeting. |
| _utmb | Targeting | 30 minutes | This is one of the four main cookies set by the Google Analytics service which is used to keep track of each visit. This cookie is used to establish and continue a user session with your site. When a user views a page on your site, the Google Analytics code attempts to update this cookie. If it does not find the cookie, a new one is written, and a new session is established. Each time a user visits a different page on your site, this cookie is updated to expire in 30 minutes, thus continuing a single session for as long as user activity continues within 30-minute intervals. This cookie expires when a user pauses on a page on your site for longer than 30 minutes. |
| _utmc | Targeting | End of session | This is one of the four main cookies set by the Google Analytics service that is used to manage your sessions. As soon as a visit ends, and the browser closes, __utmc will record this as one session. This cookie is operated in conjunction with the __utmb cookie to determine whether or not to establish a new session for the user. Sites still using the urchin.js tracking code have this cookie that continues to be written and will expire when the user exits the browser. |
| _utma | Targeting | 720 days | This is one of the four main cookies set by the Google Analytics service which enables website owners to track visitor behavior and measure site performance. This cookie distinguishes between users and sessions and collects data on the number of times a user has visited the website as well as dates for the first and most recent visit. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics. |
| _gaexp | Performance/ Targeting | 90 days | This cookie is used to determine a user’s inclusion in an A/B experiment via Google Optimize and the expiry of experiments a user has been included in. Google Optimize is used to enhance the user experience on our website. |
| _hjTLDTest | Functionality/ Targeting | End of session | When the Hotjar script executes it tries to determine the most generic cookie path to be used, instead of the page hostname. This is done so that cookies can be shared across subdomains (where applicable). To determine this, it tries to store the _hjTLDTest cookie for different URL substring alternatives until it fails. After this check, the cookie is removed. |
| _D9J | Targeting | 365 days | This cookie is an advertising tracking cookie for media campaigns and is used for reporting and verification of marketing activity undertaken by Flashtalking. These are also used to help manage and measure online advertising campaigns. |
| anj | Targeting | 365 days | The anj cookie acts as an ad targeting cookie for AppNexus. It contains data denoting whether a cookie ID is synced with our partners. ID syncing enables our partners to use their data from outside the Platform. |
| aam_uuid | Targeting | 30 days | Adobe Marketing Cloud and Adobe Audience Manager include analytics cookies to anonymously define new visitors, help analyze clickstream data, and track historical activity on the website, such as response to particular campaigns or the length of the sales cycle. aam_uid cookie is used to identify unique visitors and is set for ID sync for Adobe Audience Manager. |
| _abexps | Targeting | 365 days | This Vimeo cookie helps Vimeo remember the settings you have made. This could be a preset language, region, or username, for example. In general, the cookie stores information about how you use Vimeo. |
| _Secure-3PAPISID | Targeting | 720 days | Used by Google Analytics for targeting purposes to build a profile of the website visitor's interests to show relevant & personalized Google advertising. Builds a profile of website visitor interests to show relevant and personalized ads through retargeting. |
| _hssc | Performance/ Targeting | 30 minutes | Provided by Hubspot, is associated with websites built on the HubSpot platform. This cookie keeps track of sessions. This is used to determine if HubSpot should increment the session number and timestamps in the __hstc cookie. It contains the domain, viewCount (increments each pageView in a session), and session start timestamp. |
| _hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress | Targeting | 30 minutes | This cookie is used to detect the first pageview session of a user. This is a True/False flag set by the cookie. The cookie is set so Hotjar can track the beginning of the user’s journey for a total session count. It does not contain any identifiable information. |
| _hstc | Performance/ Targeting | 390 days | Provided by Hubspot, this cookie is the main cookie for tracking visitors, and it keeps track of sessions. This is used to determine if HubSpot should increment the session number and timestamps in the __hstc cookie. It contains the domain, utk, initial timestamp (first visit), last timestamp (last visit), current timestamp (this visit), and session number (increments for each subsequent session). |
| ANID | Targeting | 720 days | If you have personalized ads enabled, ‘ANID’ is used to remember this setting. It lists ads on Google sites based on recent searches. Also, if you have disabled personalized ads, ‘ANID’ is used to store that setting. |
| _hjIncludedInPageviewSample | Performance/ Targeting | 30 minutes | This session cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether that visitor is included in the data sampling defined by your site's pageview limit. It at times also determines if the user's navigation should be registered in a certain statistical placeholder. |
| _hjid | Targeting | 365 days | A Hotjar cookie is set when the customer first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the Hotjar User ID or create a random new User ID, unique to that site on the browser. The cookie ensures that behavior in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID. |
| _conv_v | Targeting | 180 days | Provided by Convert this cookie is a visitor-centric cookie with the purpose to track visitor experiments. This cookie is used to identify the frequency of visits and how long the visitor is on the website. And, is also used to determine how many and which subpages the visitor visits on a website. |
| _ssid | Targeting | 720 days | The cookies are served by Vimeo, which is the player used by this site. These cookies are intended for storing user’s settings in the video player, for identifying users (e.g. if they are logged in to the user account at Vimeo.com), for advertising, and for analyzing the use of the video player. Analytics is recorded with its analytics and with Google Analytics. |
| _qca | Targeting | 390 days | This cookie is used to store, and track audience reaches and for marketing and tracking purposes. This anonymous data helps websites to better understand their users' needs and tailor the website accordingly. Also, this cookie is used for aggregate traffic analysis to optimize website content. |
| _atuvc | Functionality/ Targeting | 720 days | This cookie is associated with the AddThis social sharing widget which is commonly embedded in websites to enable visitors to share content with a range of networking and sharing platforms. It stores an updated page share count. |
| APISID | Targeting | 730 days | The APISID cookie is used by Google to store user preferences and information when viewing pages with Google-hosted content, such as YouTube or Google Maps. Also, works as a security cookie to authenticate users, prevent fraudulent use of login credentials and protect user data from unauthorized parties. |
| _uetvid | Targeting | 16 days | This is a cookie utilized by Microsoft Bing Ads and is a tracking cookie. It allows us to engage with a user that has previously visited our website. It is used to track visitors on multiple websites, to present relevant advertisements based on the visitor's preferences. |
| _utmt | Targeting | 10 minutes | Set by Google Analytics, this cookie is used to throttle the request rate for the service - limiting the collection of data on high-traffic sites. |
| _hmpl | Targeting | End of session | Provided by Hubspot, this cookie is associated with websites built on the HubSpot platform. It collects information on user preferences and/or interaction with web-campaign content – This is used on CRM-campaign-platform used by website owners for promoting events or products |
| _conv_s | Targeting | End of session | Provided by Convert, this is session centric cookie and functions similarly as _conv_v does. The cookie identifies existing or new users and tracks the browsing session accordingly. It contains non-personal information on what subpages the visitor enters. |
| _hjIncludedInSessionSample | Performance/ Targeting | 30 minutes | This session cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether that visitor is included in the data sampling defined by your site's daily session limit. Registers data on visitors' website behavior and is used for internal analysis and website optimization. |
| _hssrc | Performance/ Targeting | End of session | Whenever HubSpot changes the session cookie, this cookie is also set to determine if the visitor has restarted their browser. If this cookie does not exist when HubSpot manages cookies, it is considered a new session. HubSpot uses cookies to help us understand how you engage with our content. This data is anonymous unless you have voluntarily given us our email address. |
| 1P_JAR | Targeting | 30 days | The cookie is used by Google to display personalized advertisements on Google sites, based on recent searches and previous interactions. These cookies are used to collect site statistics and track conversion rates. |
| VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE | Targeting | 6 months | This cookie is used as a unique identifier to track viewing of videos |
| VISITOR_PRIVACY_METADATA | Targeting | 5 months | YouTube is a Google owned platform for hosting and sharing videos. YouTube collects user data through videos embedded in websites, which is aggregated with profile data from other Google services in order to display targeted advertising to web visitors across a broad range of their own and other websites. |
| YSC | Targeting | End of session | YouTube is a Google owned platform for hosting and sharing videos. YouTube collects user data through videos embedded in websites, which is aggregated with profile data from other Google services in order to display targeted advertising to web visitors across a broad range of their own and other websites. |
| _GRECAPTCHA | Targeting | 6 months | This domain is owned by Google Inc. Although Google is primarily known as a search engine, the company provides a diverse range of products and services. Its main source of revenue however is advertising. Google tracks users extensively both through its own products and sites, and the numerous technologies embedded into many millions of websites around the world. It uses the data gathered from most of these services to profile the interests of web users and sell advertising space to organisations based on such interest profiles as well as aligning adverts to the content on the pages where its customer's adverts appear. |
| _cf_bm | Functionality | End of session | This is a CloudFoundry cookie |
| vuid | Functionality | 2 Years | This domain is owned by Vimeo. The main business activity is: Video Hosting/Sharing |
| ajs_user_id | Functionality/ Targeting | 365 days | A Segment IO cookie is used to assign a unique ID to each visitor and collect data about the visitor’s activity on the site. This information can be used to assign the visitor to a visitor segment, based on common preferences. Investis use this cookie to add user details on CI Dashboard. |
| _cfuvid | Functionality | 0 days | This domain is owned by Highsoft, a company based in Norway. It provides a data visualisation/charting service that can be embedded in a website. |
| __cf_bm | Functionality/ Targeting | 0 days | This is a CloudFoundry cookie |
These are cookies which are strictly necessary for our website to be able to operate or to provide you with a service on our website which you have requested. We use the following essential cookies on our website:
- Third party persistent cookies used to maintain an anonymised user session by the server. These cookies are: ASP.NET_SessionId. These cookies expire after the browsing session.
- Third party persistent cookies for load balance. These cookies are: AWSALB and AWSALBCORS. These cookies expire after 6 days.
- Third party persistent cookies for load balance. These cookies are: AWSALBTGCORS and AWSALBTG. These cookies expire after 1 day.
- Third party session cookies is a plugin used to comply with EU guidelines. These cookies are __CookieConsent. These cookies expire after 90 days.
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 website functions properly and securely and providing you with online services you have requested.
How to opt out of essential cookies
Most browsers allow you to block all cookies, including essential cookies. Please note, however, that if you block all cookies, parts of our website and its functionality may not work or display properly.
You can delete existing cookies from your browser by clearing your browsing data and ensuring that the option to delete cookies is selected.
For more detailed information on how to accept and reject cookies, including guidance for specific browsers, please see the section below entitled How to accept or reject cookies
We use the following types of non-essential cookies on our website:
- Analytical (or performance) cookies
- Targeting (or advertising) cookies
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. We use the following analytical cookies on our website:
We use Google Analytics cookies on our website. Google Analytics cookies help us understand how you engage and interact with our website, including how you came to our website, which pages you visited, for how long and what you clicked on, your location (based on your IP address).
The Google Analytics cookies used on our website are: _ga; and _gid. The _ga cookie is a persistent cookie, whilst the _gid cookies are session cookies. The persistent cookies expire after 2 years.
The information we collect using analytical cookies is collected on an anonymised basis.
We also use Vimeo Analytics cookies on our website. Vimeo Analytics cookies help us understand how you interact with our website, including which pages you visited.
The Vimeo Analytics cookies used on our website are: vuid. The vuid cookie is a persistent cookie. This persistent cookie will expire after 2 years.
The information we collect using analytical cookies is collected on an anonymised basis.
More information
Google Analytics cookies are classified as first party cookies as they are set by our website domain, although Google collects and processes information from our use of Google Analytics. To find out more about how Google handles information collected from Google Analytics, see Google Analytics’ privacy policy, which is available here: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245
For information on how Google uses data from cookies it uses, please visit www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/
Vimeo Analytics cookies are classified as third party cookies as Vimeo collects and processes information from our use of Vimeo Analytics. To find out more about how Vimeo handles information collected from Vimeo Analytics, see Vimeo Analytics’ privacy policy, which is available here: https://vimeo.com/privacy
For information on how Vimeo uses data from cookies it uses, please visit https://vimeo.com/cookie_policy
How to opt in or out from analytical cookies
See the section below entitled How to accept or reject cookies
To opt out of Google Analytics tracking across all websites in general, you can do so here: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout
Processing information about you contained in or obtained from analytical cookies
The lawful basis we rely on to process any personal data collected through the use of non-essential cookies is Article 6(1)(a) of the GDPR, (i.e. we require your consent to process any personal data which may be collected by the non-essential cookies we use). You can change your consent preferences at any time by clicking on the “cookies settings” link at the bottom of our website.
Targeting (or advertising) cookies
Targeting (or advertising) cookies record information about your visit to and use of our website, for advertising purposes. We use the targeting cookies for the following purposes on our website:
How to opt in or out from advertising cookies
See the section below entitled How to accept or reject cookies
Processing information about you contained in or obtained from advertising cookies
The lawful basis we rely on to process any personal data collected through the use of non-essential cookies is Article 6(1)(a) of the GDPR, (i.e. we require your consent to process any personal data which may be collected by the non-essential cookies we use). You can change your consent preferences at any time by clicking on the “cookies settings” link at the bottom of our website.
There are a number of different ways in which you can accept or reject some or all cookies and similar technologies. 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 should also 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.
You can find more detailed information about cookies and adjusting your browser settings by visiting www.allaboutcookies.org
Accepting or rejecting cookies
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.
Google Adsettings
You can manage and opt out of personalisation of advertisements by Google by visiting Google’s ad settings page here https://adssettings.google.com/and by:
- unticking the button entitled ‘Also use Google Account activity and information to personalize ads on these websites and apps and store that data in your Google Account’; and
- switching the ‘Ads Personalisation’ setting off (i.e. by ensuring the switch at the top of the page is set to the left/grey and not the right/blue).
Alternatively, you can install a free browser plugin here: https://support.google.com/ads/answer/7395996
Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on
You can opt out of Google Analytics tracking by installing the browser add-on which is available here: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout
Web beacons
You can opt out of our use of web beacons in our marketing emails by emailing us on: [email protected].
Last Updated: 23/02/2024