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Cookie Policy

1. What are cookies?

A "cookie" is a piece of information, like a tag, which some websites create on your PC/mobile phone which identifies your PC/mobile phone whenever you visit that website. In order to provide you with the best possible online experience, giffgaff may create cookies when you visit giffgaff.com, whether this is on your mobile or your PC. Cookies help us to arrange content to match your preferred interests, and take into account your giffgaff customisations. They’re also used by most major websites. You may also find that some third party sites use cookies – sites such as YouTube – when you view an embedded video, or Social Networks such as Facebook and Twitter

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2. What are cookies used for?

Suppliers for giffgaff, who assist in the serving and targeting of advertisements, promotions and other marketing messages, may also use cookies to collect anonymous data such as how many people have viewed a particular page each day, this information can also be used to limit the amount an existing giffgaff customer’s served advertising. It’s important to note that cookies don’t harm your computer and don’t store personal information about you, such as credit card details, rather they store encrypted information which can access this information, helping to improve your giffgaff experience.

In order to help you, cookies may be used to:

  • Limit the frequency with which you will see particular advertisements or announcement from giffgaff on our website;
  • Identify your defaults where you have customised your profile;
  • Keep track of how many times you do specific things, such as posting in the forums;
  • Track where you have come from if you were referred to our website;
  • Provide you with self-help information;
  • Make our offers more relevant to you by taking into account your response to previous, similar offers;
  • Remarket giffgaff ads to you as you browse the internet; and
  • Help us understand how our advertising impressions correlate with visits to webpages on giffgaff.com so we can improve our marketing strategies.

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3. These cookies are used by giffgaff to maintain personal preferences

napasessionID, napaUser, napald

  • These are needed for member log-in.

VISITORID, !lithiumSSO, lithiumSSO:napa

  • These link your profile with Lithium - the platform used for the community and the blog.

ggmobi

  • Used for mobile browsers who wish to view the full site.

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4. Third party cookies

Aw + id, AW (Flash cookie), _AW_M_+id

  • Set when you click on an Affiliate link to give an idea of the site you've come from.

AWSESS

  • Used when you click on an advert, so that you don't get served the same ad lots of times.

Awpv +id

  • Set when you click an advert to let giffgaff and AW know where you went after seeing the Advert.

Addvantage, AdFonic, AdNetic, Affectv, Invite Media, Audience 2 Media, Clickbrokers, Ebay, Exchange Lab, Gumtree, Interactive Media, Invite Media, IPT, Linking Mobile, MSN, Specific Media, Quantcast, Struq, Yahoo, Youth Media

  • Used for tracking visits, retargeting and tracking SIM orders.

Double Click Cookie

  • Used to support Google Analytics for Display Advertising functionality and specifically to implement the following features: Remarketing, Google Display Network Impression Reporting, DoubleClick Campaign Manager integration and Google Analytics Demographics and Interesting reporting;
  • If you want to opt-out of Google Analytics for Display Advertising you can do so by changing your preferences here: www.google.com/settings/ads and using the Google Analytics opt-out tool here: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/;
  • The information gathered by this cookie will be used together with other cookies (such as the Google Analytics cookie) by us and third party vendors, including Google:
    • in respect of Remarketing, to inform, optimise and serve ads online to you based on your previous visits to giffgaff.com;
    • in respect of Google Display Network Impression Reporting and the DoubleClick Campaign Manager integration, to report how our ad impressions, other use of ad services and interactions with these impressions and services are related to your visit to giffgaff.com; and
    • in respect of Google Analytics Demographics and Interesting Reporting, to use data from Google’s interest-based advertising, or third-party audience data to tailor the types of ad you are served.

We also use Flashplayer for our video content, Adobe uses Flash Cookies (Local shared objects) to improve user experience.

If you wish to disable or delete a Flash cookie, see Adobe Flashplayer Security Settings . Please bear in mind though, that if you disable Flash cookies for giffgaff.com you'll unable to access certain types of content on the site, such as videos.

Facebook

  • We use Facebook Cookies for a number of reasons; they allow us to offer you a better user experience by personalising your journey on our website and across your devices;
  • Using the Facebook cookie lets us know who is interacting with our ads, website and apps of our advertisers, so we can be more thoughtful about where we show our adverts, and to whom;
  • The use of the Facebook cookie can also provide us with insights into people who are interested in giffgaff’s services, and help us to improve our offering and marketing.

In addition to the cookies described within this policy, this website may store content in your browser cache to improve your user experience by reducing loading times and data consumption. For this purpose, elements of advertising on these pages, such as images, will be downloaded into your browser cache at an appropriate time.

If you want to find out more about web workers in general and how to manage them you can do so here.

You can manage web caching technology through your browser settings.

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5. How do I manage cookies?

You can accept or decline cookies. Most PCs automatically accept them but you can modify your browser settings to decline them if you wish. Each browser is different, so check the 'Help' menu of your browser (or your mobile phone's manual) to learn how to change your cookie preferences. You can also decline the use of certain third party advertising by visiting this site please note we’re not responsible for content contained on this site.

If you decline cookies, some aspects of the giffgaff site may not work on your PC/mobile phone and you may not be able to access areas you want on the website. For this reason we recommend that you accept cookies.

Finally, please note that advertisers and other third parties (such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter) may use their own cookies when you click on their advertisement or link to their site, on or from our website. These third parties are responsible for setting their own cookie and privacy policies.

If you'd like to learn more about cookies in general and how to manage them, visit aboutcookies.org.

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