IDEALS tries to give visitors to our website the best experience possible. One of the ways we achieve this is by storing small amounts of information about your visit in data files onto your computer called cookies. Cookies don't identify you personally, but help the site remember details about your visit enabling us to provide better services for you. They cannot carry viruses or install malware on your machine.
You can control and delete these files as you wish. If you chose to delete cookies please be aware that some parts of the website, such as our contact form, will not work properly. You can find out more about cookies and how to remove them at: http://aboutcookies.org
What Are Cookies
As is common practice with almost all professional websites this site uses cookies, which are tiny files that are downloaded to your computer, 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.
How we use Cookies
IDEALS uses cookies in several places, we'll run through each we set, what reasons we have for setting them and how long they last for.
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.
Disabling Cookies
You can prevent the setting of cookies by adjusting the settings on your browser (see your browser Help for how to do this). 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.
The Cookies We Set
- Forms related cookies
When you submit data to through a form such as those found on contact pages or comment forms cookies may be set to remember your user details for future correspondence.
Measuring Website Usage (via Google Analytics)
We measure how people visit the site to improve the experience for our visitors as part of an ongoing process. We use Google Analytics to do this, and Analyticskeeps track of what pages you visit, how long you stay on each section of the site and what links you click on. Google Analytics does not store any personal details about you and we do not allow Google to share or use any analytics data gathered.
Google Analytics sets these cookies in order to measure this.
| Cookie Name | Typical Content | Description | Expires in: |
|---|---|---|---|
| _utma | a random number | Minimally Intrusive. Used for Google web metrics | 2 years |
| _utmb | a random number | Minimally Intrusive. Used for Google web metrics | 30 minutes |
| _utmc | a random number | Minimally Intrusive. Used for Google web metrics | when you close your browser |
| _utmx | a random number | Minimally Intrusive. Used for Google web metrics | 2 years |
Remembering Your Session
To remember your details when you fill in our contact form we save details of your visit as a session on our server.
To keep track of your unique session we set the identifying number in a cookie. Without this cookie this website would not work efficiently.
| Cookie Name | Typical Content | Description | Expires in: |
|---|---|---|---|
| ideals_PHPSESSION | a random number | Exempt from updated privacy regulations. Required by this site's content management system to operate | When you close the browser |