Cookies and how we use them
What are cookies?
A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer, if you agree. Cookies are then sent back to the originating website on each subsequent visit, or to another website that recognizes that cookie. Cookies are useful because they allow a website to recognize a user’s device and to target the content displayed to the user’s interests.
You can find more information about cookies at www.allaboutcookies.org.
Do we use cookies?
Yes.
Types of cookies
There are two broad types of cookies - 'first party cookies' and 'third party cookies':
First party cookies are cookies that are served directly by the website operator to your computer, and are often used to recognize your computer when it revisits that site and to remember your preferences as you browse the site. Basically, these are our cookies.
Third party cookies are served by a service provider on behalf of the website operator, and can be used by the service provider to recognize your computer when you visit other web sites. Third party cookies are most commonly used for web site analytics or advertising purposes.
In addition, cookies may be either 'session cookies' or 'persistent cookies'. Your computer automatically removes session cookies once you close your browser. Persistent cookies will survive on your computer until an expiry date specified in the cookie itself, is reached. We use both session and persistent cookies.
Categories of cookies we use
1. Strictly necessary cookies: These cookies are essential for the user to move around the website and to use its features, e.g. shopping baskets and e-billing.
2. Performance cookies: These cookies collect information about how the user makes use of the site, e.g. which pages the user visits most. These cookies do not collect information that identifies the user.
3. Functionality cookies: These cookies remember choices made by or attributes of the user and enhance the features and content you experience during your visit to our website, e.g. language, appeals visited or user’s location. This cookie is also used to remember a user's preferences for a font size, or customizable parts of a web page.
4. Marketing cookies: These cookies collect information about the users' browsing habits. This may also include your use of social media sites, e.g. Facebook, etc. or how you interact with our website which then shows you relevant content elsewhere on the internet. NB. These may also be used to choose the advertisements that are displayed to you on our website and other websites.
We have assessed our cookies based on the ICC Cookie Guide. The majority of our cookies fall into the first two categories. However, we also use cookies on our webpages which are in categories 3 and 4.
What information do we collect using cookies?
We may collect some, or all, of the information available from cookies when you visit our website, depending on how you use it. We monitor how people use our website so we can improve it. We collect this information anonymously.
However, you can choose to use our website anonymously without giving us any information. Please see ‘Changing your cookie preferences’ below.
If you visit our website, we may use cookies to record information about:
- the areas of the website you visit;
- the amount of time you spend on the site;
- whether you are new to the site, or have visited it before;
- the country, region, city and/or borough associated with your IP address or device;
- how you came to our website – for example, through an email link or a search engine;
- the type of device and browser you use;
- how you use the website and the quality of your experience – for example we may track your bandwidth when viewing videos;
- how you interact with our donation and sign up forms – for example what you select as your communication preferences; and
- any error messages that you receive on the site
We use cookies to track how visitors come to our site. For example, we use marketing or referring tracking codes in internet addresses (URLs) to show us whether a visitor has come to our site via a link on a referring website or in a specific piece of marketing and to give us insight into the effectiveness of our marketing. Some of this information may be used by third party cookies to target you with relevant advertising (see below).
Although not through cookies, we do measure the success of the emails we send – so we know what subject lines and stories people liked the most. We receive this information anonymously, we don’t share this information.
Stop Child Abuse may collect your email address via cookies and pixels on the Website through the use of trusted third party partners. These partners may combine your email information with other information they have access to such as mailing address so that Stop Child Abuse may serve relevant marketing offers to you via direct mail. If you do not want Stop Child Abuse to collect information about you, please contact Stop Child Abuse at
Website statistics analytics, testing and personalization
Our website currently uses one type of web analytics services:
1. Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. (“Google”). Google Analytics uses “cookies”, which (as discussed above) are text files placed on your computer, to help the website analyse how users use the site. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website, compiling reports on website activity for website operators and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage.
Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google's behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser, however please note that if you do this you may not be able to use the full functionality of this website. By using this website, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner and for the purposes set out above. For more details please read Google’s Analytics overview.
You can always opt-out of Google Analytics cookies by Google’s opt-out tool.
Other third-party cookies
You may notice some other cookies that are not related to the Stop Child Abuse’s website whilst visiting www.stopchildabuse.org. Some of our pages contain embedded content such as YouTube video, Twitter feed or Facebook likes, and you may receive cookies delivered from these websites. Stop Child Abuse does not govern the publication of third-party cookies. To understand more about their cookies and privacy statements, please visit the relevant sites.
Some of our cookies will remind you about our work and how you can help after you have left the website. These are the targeting/advertising cookies we use. It is a useful tool for us to keep public awareness of our campaigns and how they can be supported.
If you do not want cookies to be stored on your PC it is possible to disable this function without affecting your navigation around the site.
Changing your cookie preferences
The "Help" menu in the toolbar of most web browsers will tell you how to change your browser's cookie settings, including how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie, and how to disable cookies altogether. Below is some helpful guidance about how to make these changes.
How to disable cookies
If you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer and you wish to block Stop Child Abuse’s website cookies, you can perform the following:
1. On your browser tools menu, select 'Internet Options'
2. Click on the 'Privacy' tab and then on the 'Sites' button
3. Type into the 'Address of website' field: www.stopchildabuse.org
4. Click on the 'Block' button
5. Click on the OK button
Find out more information about blocking or deleting cookies using Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Other browsers:
- Firefox cookie management
- Chrome cookie management
- Safari cookie management
Find out more detailed information on disabling cookies.
