Website Cookie Policy

WBS Website Cookie Policy

1. What is a cookie?

Most websites use cookies to remember information about you and your preferences, either for the duration of your visit or for repeat visits. A cookie is a simple text file that is stored on your computer or mobile device by a website, that website can then retrieve the contents of that cookie when required whether that be during the visit or on subsequent visits.

If we didn't use cookies, our website would think you are a new visitor every time you move to a new page on the site. For example, if you were to enter your login details and then move to another page, our site wouldn't be able to remember that you'd previously signed in.

There are two types of cookies - session cookies and persistent cookies. A cookie without an expiration date, is a session cookie. Session cookies are stored in memory and are not written to disk. When the browser is closed, the cookie is permanently lost. Persistent cookies contain an expiration date. On the date specified in the expiration, the cookie will be removed from the disk. These cookies may be set by our website ('first party cookies') or by other websites which provide content on the page you are viewing ('third party cookies').

2. Do we just use cookies?

No, in addition to cookies we use - Web beacons, such as clear GIFs, web bugs, or pixel tags, are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in function to cookies, are used to track the online movements of our users. In contrast to cookies, which are stored on a user’s computer hard drive, web beacons are embedded invisibly on web pages and are about the size of the full stop at the end of this sentence. Web beacons are used in combination with cookies to help us and our advertisers understand the behaviour of our users.

3. How does Warwick Business School use the information we collect?

Category of use

Description

Preferences We use Preference cookies to help our website to remember information that changes the way the site behaves or looks, for instance, by remembering what type of device you are using to browse our site we can ensure that the site displays correctly.
Security We use security / registration cookies to authenticate users.
Process The process information we collect helps make our website work. Simple functions such as navigating around web pages or accessing secure areas of the website would not be possible without this information.
Analytics & Advertising

We use technologies such as Google analytics to gather information about site usage. The information we gather includes but is not limited to; whether or not you have visited the site before; the pages you have accessed; the referring website. In addition we also gather data on our users' demographics (age, gender) and interests (affinity categories, other categories). Should you wish to opt out you can use the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.

In addition to Google analytics we use other technologies provided by Google to gather and analyse information about site usage and performance in relation to our advertising campaigns. We use Google Ads Conversion tracking and Double Click for Advertiser Floodlight tags (DFA) to enable us to compare the performance of our ad campaigns placed on Google Search or selected Google Display Network sites.  Specifically, if you submit an application we will use the unique ID number assigned to your application to allow us to match your application with our advertising campaigns and website usage.

We also use Double Click for Advertiser Floodlight tags (DFA) to make advertising more engaging, valuable and to improve reporting on campaign performance. DFA is used for advertising we serve outside of the WBS domain to help determine how many people click on our ads and end up purchasing/applying for our products or courses on either our website or partner sites. These cookies persist for a limited time. For more information see: How Google uses cookies in advertisingAbout Floodlight page.

If you object and wish to opt out you can visit Google's Ads Preferences Manager, Microsoft's About our ads,  NAI's Consumer Opt out page or Your Online Choices.

We also analyse user interaction on the WBS website using technologies such as Mouseflow. This is used to understand and improve user experience on the WBS website. The information we gather includes but is not limited to clicks, mouse movements/hovers, device information, language, time on site, navigation, ISP & ISP Location (City, State/Region, Country), Keystrokes (with the exception of Personal data, passwords, digit, and excluded fields). If you do not wish to be tracked, you can opt-out at: https://mouseflow.com/opt-out.

We use pixel tags on our website which are utilised by our social media sites, specifically Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn. These tags help us gather information about site usage; understand the effectiveness of our advertising campaigns; enable us to compare the performance of those campaigns to ads displayed on other websites and apps. 

The tags are also used to help the social media sites receive information when you visit our website, including device information and information about your activity, without any further action from you. This occurs whether or not you have an account with them or are logged in.

We create reports based on referrals generated by our email campaigns that are created using Dotdigital (formally dotmailer). Our emails may contain a single, campaign-unique web beacon pixel to tell us whether our emails are opened and verify any clicks through to links or advertisements within the email. We use tracking features such as Dotdigital Site tracking. Site tracking tracks you (our contact) whilst you browse our website’s pages. This data is then made available in our reporting. To see further information you can visit Dotdigital's cookie article.
 

We use Interest based advertising to serve our adverts to visitors that have loaded pages on our website and also on partner sites outside of the WBS domain. Our adverts appear across the Google Display Network and the Microsoft Media Network, triggered by a cookie that is added to your browser upon loading certain pages. Membership duration can be up to 365 days or until the cookie is manually deleted. If you visit our pages again the membership may be renewed. The data we collect is non-personally identifiable information (Non PII) and is based on cookie information and browsing history. None of this information collected is ‘personal data’ or ‘special categorypersonal’ data as defined by the General Data Protection Regulation 2016 . We do not correlate personally identifiable information with remarketing lists.

Other Third Party Targeting

We sometimes embed photos and video content from third party websites such as, but not limited to, YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Flickr. As a result, when you visit one of our pages containing such content, you may be presented with cookies from these websites. We don't control the dissemination of these cookies and you should check the relevant third party's website for more information.  These cookies may record your visit to our website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. These cookies may be used by third parties for this purpose and linked to their own site functionality.

'Targeting' cookies are linked to services provided by third parties, such as 'Like' buttons and 'Share' buttons. The third party provides these services in return for recognising that you have visited our website. We use 'Targeting' cookies to link to social networks like Facebook, who may subsequently use information about your visit to target advertising to you on other websites; Provide advertising agencies with information on your visit so that they can present you with adverts that you may be interested in when you return to our website, or visit other third party websites; Deliver content and marketing communications tailored to your interests based on information from our visit.

 

We don’t sell the information collected, nor do we disclose the information to third parties, except where required by law (for example to government bodies and law enforcement agencies).

4. Cookies we use

 

 

5. What to do if you don't want cookies to be set

If you don’t want our web sites to store cookies on your computer, tablet or phone, you can modify your browser so that it asks for your permission when a web site wants to set a cookie, or you can refuse performance and advertising cookies altogether when first visiting our website, or go to the cookie preference panel in the footer of this website anytime to revoke cookies being set.

You can also delete cookies that have already been set by clicking the cookies preference link in the footer of our website and rejecting additional cookies.

If you wish to restrict or block web browser cookies on your device then you can do this through your browser settings; the Help function within your browser should tell you how.

For Google Analytics cookies, Google provide a Google Analytics opt-out tool which allows you to specify that you don't want to accept their cookies, not just for our site, but for all sites which use Google Analytics.