1. Who we are and how to contact us
We are Acroud Media Ltd. We, via our various brands, publish via digital platforms, including national and regional websites (our ‘Sites’) every month. You can see the list of websites and brands here.
Our address is:
14 London Street, Andover, Hampshire, SP101PA.
For any queries you have relating to this Notice, you can contact us at the above address.
2. About this Cookie Notice
This notice explains how we use cookies and similar technologies (‘cookies’) on our Sites and how you can manage the behaviour of these cookies.
With that in mind, we want you to feel in control of the information you generate when you use our Sites; this Notice is organised based on what you might want to know about how we use cookies, including how you can manage the behaviour of these cookies.
3. What is a cookie?
A cookie is a small data file sent from a website to your web browser. It is stored in your web browser’s cache and allows a website, or a third party, to recognise your browser or mobile device, and to obtain data about your browsing activity. .
Mobile devices and browsers can be shared by a number of people, so cookies do not always relate to particular individuals. For a detailed description of how we use the personal data we collect, please see our Privacy Notice.
4. What types of cookies do we use?
We use five main types of cookies: essential, functional, analytic, personalisation, and advertising.
4.1 Essential Cookies
These cookies are essential to provide you with the services that you have requested from us; because of their essential nature, they cannot be switched off.
4.2 Functional Cookies
These cookies enable us to remember some important information, such as your computer or mobile device when you visit a website, your registration and log in details, and your settings and preferences.
They are used by us to ensure that you don’t have to log in every single time you want to comment on our articles, and to ensure our interactive services work effectively.
4.3 Analytic Cookies
Analytic cookies retain information as you view different pages on our Sites, and they help us to paint a picture of how our readers use our Sites.
Additionally, these cookies help us to make the website work as efficiently as possible, and provide better content and services in the future.
We may also use analytics cookies to measure the effectiveness of advertising on the Sites and the Apps and elsewhere on the internet.
4.4 Personalisation Cookies
These cookies enable us to recommend content we think you’ll be interested in, based on what you’ve looked at before.
4.5 Advertising Cookies
These cookies are placed by us, and our advertising partners, to deliver more relevant advertising. A complete list of our advertising partners is provided within our Consent Management Platform (‘CMP’), which is displayed to all new Site visitors.
We undertake this activity on the basis of your consent, which we request on their behalf through the ‘cookie banner’ that appears when you first visit our Site. The ‘cookie banner’ message box will reappear from time to time in case you change your mind or when something changes (typically every 30 days). Please see the ‘cookie’ icon or link at the bottom of every webpage to manage your consent.
Most of our third-party advertising partners operate within an industry framework and code of practice issued by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) called the “Transparency and Consent Framework”, which sets out the technical means for your choices to be passed through the ad networks. It also requires that members adhere to IAB policies and standards of behaviour.
Advertising partners who do not work within the IAB framework are listed separately in the platform which can be viewed in our Consent Management Platform (CMP). In the Consent Management Platform popup go to the ‘Partners’ page and scroll down – IAB partners are listed first, then you’ll see Non-IAB vendors and finally Google partners.
These cookies may gather information about your browsing activity on our sites and for third parties, across different Sites and across different visits. They allow us and advertisers to show more relevant ads, while also allowing advertisers to manage how many times a device sees an advert. They might also enable an advertiser to tailor advertising to you when you visit our Sites.
When you have accepted the placement of advertising cookies via our CMP and, subsequent to this consent, provide us with your email address (when you create an account, sign up for a newsletter, enter a competition/survey etc.) we will share your email address in a hashed form to trusted 3rd parties. Such information will be used to enable targeted advertising, profiling, and interest-based content.
Please see the Privacy Notice for further information about how we use your personal data.
5. Why do we use cookies?
The information generated from your browsing helps us to understand how people use our websites, how we can improve them, and also to make sure that adverts are more relevant to you.
Examples of what we use cookies for include:
- Examples of what we use cookies for include:
- If we notice that more users from London prefer reading about rugby on a Saturday morning, we can adjust when and how much content we produce for local rugby coverage on weekends rather than during the week.
- When we run a survey on a popular topic, such as changes in council services, cookies help us ensure that each device or browser can only respond once, preventing anyone from skewing the results with multiple entries.
- If a device or browser frequently engages with articles on sustainable living, we and/or our partners may show adverts for eco-friendly products, lifestyle goods, and green technology to make ads more relevant to the user’s interests.
- If our analytics show that users in certain cities prefer receiving breaking news notifications in the morning, we can tailor our alerts to match these peak times, ensuring that notifications reach users when they’re most likely to read them.
Further information on the purposes of placing cookies can be found within our CMP, displayed to all new Site visitors. It can also be found via the Privacy cog icon or link at the bottom of each webpage for our Sites and for Apps via the ‘My Account’ Link at the bottom of the screen which includes ‘My Privacy’ and takes you to the CMP.
6. How can you manage your cookie preferences?
6.1 On Site
We have put a Consent Management Platform (CMP) in place on our Sites. This platform helps you to manage what non-Essential cookies are placed on your device; you can decide whether to accept or reject a range of cookies with defined purposes. These preferences can be changed at any time, by clicking on the Privacy cog icon or link on the bottom of every webpage.
Additionally, most web browsers will allow you to stop accepting cookies. This is normally controlled through the Settings or Help page of a browser; further information can be found using the below links:
- Microsoft Edge cookie settings
- Firefox cookie settings
- Chrome cookie settings
- Safari cookie settings
For interest based advertising, you can also opt-out by visiting: http://youronlinechoices.eu.
There is an AdChoice logo At the corner of every advertisement that carries behavioural targeting cookies; you can click on the link within this logo to control the settings that Google uses to display adverts (https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated).
7. How long do cookies last?
Cookies are stored on your device until you delete them or until they expire, as a general rule we will not retain any data that has been captured through their use for any longer than necessary.
Detailed information regarding the duration of cookies set by our partners, can be found within the relevant section of our CMP.
8. Are there any third parties involved?
When you provide us with permission, we will share data collected through the use of cookies and similar technologies on our Sites with selected third party partners.
We provide detailed information on the identity of partners, including the data that they collect and what they use it for, within the relevant sections of our CMP.
9. Ad Blocker Detection
We, or our advertisers, may use code on our Sites to detect if you are using an ad blocker. If we detect that you are using an ad blocker, we may display a warning message describing how this may affect your experience using the Sites and ask that you disable it.
10. Social Media Technologies
When you use social media platforms with the Sites, each platform has its own technologies and policies to be aware of. For information on limiting the use of widgets and sharing functions with social networks, see below:
For Twitter widgets, you can find more information here.
For Facebook widgets, you can find more information here.
For Pinterest widgets, you can find more information here.
11. Cookie Notice last updated
This Notice was updated on 28/10/2024.
