Cookies and Website Technologies
When you visit our websites or use our apps, we may use certain automated tools to provide you with a more personalized browsing experience, better understand your needs, provide you with content that is most relevant to you and monitor trends respecting the usage of our site and apps.
In general, you can visit our public website without telling us who you are or submitting any personal information. However, through log files and other technologies, we collect the IP (Internet protocol) addresses of all visitors to our websites and other related information such as page requests, browser type, operating system and average time spent on our websites. We collect similar information respecting the usage of our apps. We use this information to help us understand user activity on our websites, to provide you with content appropriate for your region, and to monitor and improve our websites.
Cookies: Our websites use a technology called "cookies". A cookie is a small text file stored on your device that identifies your browser/device/IP address – but not you as an individual – to our computers each time you visit one of our websites. More information about cookies can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie. We use cookies on the pages on our websites where you are prompted to log in or that are customizable. If you have registered with our websites, these cookies (1) may let us know who you are, (2) may be necessary to access your account information (stored on our computers) in order to provide personalized services, and (3) will provide us and our service providers with information that we will use to personalize our websites in accordance with your preferences and interests. You may set your Web browser to notify you when you receive a cookie or to not accept certain cookies (these controls are typically found in the privacy settings for your browser). You do not need to enable cookies to visit our website; however, if you decide not to accept cookies, you may not be able to take advantage of all of the features of that site.
Tracer Tags & Web Beacons: Our websites may also use a technology called "tracer tags" or “Web Beacons”. A web beacon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_beacon is a small transparent graphic image that allows us to record simple user actions related to our websites and to email communications received from us, to help us determine the usage and effectiveness of our site and communications. These “images” are automatically loaded to your browser/device when you visit the website or open an html format email message from us, thereby letting us know if a certain page was visited or an email message was opened. This technology allows us to understand which pages you visit on our websites. These tracer tags are used to help us optimize and tailor our websites for you and future visitors.
Analytics: We may use a third party such as Google Analytics to help us gather and analyze information about the areas visited on the websites (such as the pages most read, time spent, search terms and other engagement data) in order to evaluate and improve the user experience and the convenience of the websites. For more information or to opt-out, see “How Google uses data when you use our partners’ sites or apps” and “Google Analytics and Privacy”.