The EU recently brought in new regulation regarding commercial websites and their use of cookies, requiring website visitors' "informed consent". The official advice resulting from this is currently rather inconsistent, and some of the suggested technical measures are incompatible with a satisfactory online consumer experience. While the internet community, browser developers and legislators work their way through this and figure out what everyone can be reasonably expected to do in order to comply, and while we continue to search for our own solution, here is an explanation of our own current use of cookies, together with some information on how to manage and disable them if you so wish.
To be clear, we do not currently make use of cookies that can track you across different domains.
Most modern websites place small amounts of information on your device, for example, your computer or mobile phone. These include small files known as cookies.
These pieces of information are generally used to improve your online experience, for example:
a) enabling our website to recognise your device so you don't have to give the same information several times during one task
b) recognising that you may already have given a username and password so you don't need to do it for every web page requested.
c) enabling our computer server to remember the contents of your shopping cart when you shop online with us and to process your eventual order.
d) measuring how many people use our website and how they navigate it, so that it can be made easier to use and so that we can ensure there's enough capacity for it to run as fast as possible.
You can manage and disable these small files yourself in your browser and learn more about them online.
If you decide to disable cookies from Bath Ales, you may find that your experience of using our wesbite is impaired, for example it may not display correctly and you won't be able to use our online store.
1. Google Analytics sets cookies to help us accurately estimate the number of visitors to the website and volumes of usage, and also to understand the user journey so that we can improve it.
Name: _utma
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: 2 years
Name: _utmb
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: 30mins
Name: _utmc
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: At end of session
Name: _utmz
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: 6 months
2. sIFR (or Scalable Inman Flash Replacement) sets cookies to check browser support for a web technology that improves the presentation of our website.
Name: sifrFetch
Typical content: set to true
Expires: At end of session
3. PHPSESSID sets cookies when you visit our site, it enables our server to remember the contents of your shopping cart and process your order, and to help you keep track of which items you have looked at in our online shop.
Name: PHPSESSID
Typical content: randomly generated numbers and letters
Expires: At end of session