Privacy Statement
We have created this privacy statement in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to your privacy and the security of your personal information. This privacy policy applies only to this website (the "Site"). If you do not accept this privacy policy, you must not use the Site.
Collection of Personal Information
We collect personal information from you (such as name, age, email address etc) when you complete registration or enquiry forms, order any products or services, participate in message boards, blogs or any other user generated content facilities or send emails to us. This information is used:
- to provide additional functionality and services (for example newsletters, web discussion forums etc)
- to maintain and improve the quality of service
- to help us maintain the security of the Site and its users
- to provide general aggregated statistics regarding use of the Site
Contact information may be used to maintain a mailing list which is used by the Site to inform site users of changes to the site and is not passed on to any third parties. Aggregate information collected regarding the general demographic make up of Site visitors may be made available to third parties (i.e. percentage of visitors from Canada), but information which is associated only with individuals will not be disclosed (i.e. e-mail addresses, names etc). Please do not submit your personal information to us if you do not wish us to collect it.
Use of Cookies
Cookies and similar technology
The Site uses cookies, web beacons and similar technical tools to collect information about your access to the Site and the services we provide. Please be aware that restricting cookies will have an impact on the functionality of the Site and may prevent you using our services.
Cookies are pieces of information which include a unique reference code that a website transfers to your device to store and sometimes track information about you. A number of cookies we use last only for the duration of your web session and expire when you close your browser. Other cookies are used to remember you when you return to the Site and will last for longer. A web beacon is a small graphic image placed on a web page that is designed to allow us to monitor traffic on the Site or within electronic communications.
We use cookies to:
- remember that you have used the Site before; this means we can identify the number of unique visitors we receive to different parts of the Site. This allows us to make sure we have enough capacity for the number of users that we get and make sure that the Site runs fast enough;
- remember your login session so you can move from one page to another within the Site;
- store your preferences or your user name and password so that you do not need to input these every time you visit the Site;
- customise elements of the layout and/or content of the pages of the Site for you;
- collect statistical information about how you use the Site so that we can improve the Site; and
- gather information about the pages on the Site that you visit, and also other information about other websites that you visit.
Some of the cookies used by the Site are set by us, and some are set by third parties who are delivering services on our behalf such as our advertising partners who serve advertisements that they believe are most likely to be of interest to you, based on information about your visit to the Site and other websites (this information is anonymous in that it does not include your name, street address, email address or telephone number). For more information about this type of online behavioural advertising please visit www.youronlinechoices.co.uk or follow the link to the relevant website of our advertising partners shown below.
You can choose to disable cookies from this Site or selectively from any of the 3rd party advertising vendors (such as Google) by changing your browser settings or using other software tools. If you disable cookies used on this website, you will be unable to log in to the website or use other features and services provided, but will still be able to access a lot of the site's public content. Most internet browsers accept cookies automatically, but usually you can alter the settings of your browser to erase cookies or prevent automatic acceptance if you prefer. If you choose not to receive our cookies, you may not be able to use some of the core features of the Site. You can learn more about cookies and how to reject cookies using different types of browser by visiting www.allaboutcookies.org.
a) Our cookies
A description of the main cookies we use and of the general purpose we use these for is provided below. We allocated a category to each cookie so you can decide whether or not you want them to be installed. We have called them;
- Performance Cookies –Performance Cookies collect information about how you use our website. These cookies do not collect information that identifies you. All information collected is aggregated and therefore anonymous. They are only used to improve the performance of our website.
- Essential Cookies - These cookies are essential in order to enable you to move around the website and/or use its features such as accessing secure areas. Without these the services you are requesting such as contact or registration cannot be provided.
Where possible in the case of cookies set by third-party systems we have provided links to information about how you can manage your preferences for each cookie.
Note:
- Not all of the following cookies are set for all visitors
- Cookies which last for the length of the 'Session' expire shortly after the person last visits the website.
Essential Cookies:
| Cookie name | Purpose | Type and duration (i.e. session only or persistent) |
|---|---|---|
| PHPSESSID | This is a temporary session cookie that is set whenever you visit the site and is used to record a session/visit to the website. The contents of these cookies is usually a singly unique ID number. If you do not intend to ever log in, you may deny this cookie, but you cannot log in without it. | At end of session. |
| AdvancedPoll[] | This cookie used to track votes in our online language polls. It contains a number representing the response ID of the vote cast. | Persistent: 4 days. |
| bb_userid | This vBulletin cookie stores your user ID. It is checked every time a page loads. | Persistent: 1 year |
| bb_lastvisit | This vBulletin cookie updates the last visit and last activity times for guests and registered users (differently). Last visit is set to the last activity time (before it's updated). Last activity is always set to the specified time. | Persistent: 1 year |
| bb_lastactivity | This vBulletin cookie checks what you did when you last used the Site. This is a constantly updated cookie. | Persistent: 1 year |
| bb_password | This vBulletin cookie stores an encrypted version of your password, when you are logged into the Site. It's checked every time the page loads. | Persistent: 1 year |
| bb_sessionhash | This vBulletin cookie is needed for maintaining session state and security. It's checked on every page load. | At end of session. |
| bb_thread_lastview[] | This vBulletin cookie last visit time of specific thread. | |
| IDStack | Cookie used to store a list of login names used from the same computer. | Persistent: 4 months |
| skimlinks_enabled | Cookie used by Skimlinks software to determine if functionality is enabled. | At end of session. |
| vbseo_loggedin | This vBulletin plugin cookie tracks whether a user is currently logged in or not. | Persistent: 60 minutes |
Performance Cookies:
| Cookie name | Purpose | Type and duration (i.e. session only or persistent) | More Info |
|---|---|---|---|
| _gads | This cookie is used by Google for a variety of purposes (eg, ensuring Frequency Caps work correctly) which include Adsense if you have Adsense enabled. | Persistent: 2 years | Click Here |
| _utma | This Google Analytics cookie is used to determine the number of unique visitors to our website and it is updated with each page viewed. | Persistent: 2 years | Click Here |
| _utmb | This Google Analytics cookie is used to establish and continue a user session with this site | Session: expires after 30 minutes of inactivity. | Click Here |
| _utmc | This Google Analytics cookie is a tracking code to determine session status. | At end of session. | Click Here |
| _utmv | This Google Analytics cookie allows custom variables to be associated with a | Click Here | |
| _utmz | This Google Analytics cookie stores the type of referral used by the visitor to reach your site. | Persistent: 6 months | Click Here |
| _utmx | This Google Analytics Website Optimiser cookie stores the variation this visitor is assigned to for each experiment, so the visitor has a consistent experience on this site. | Persistent: 2 years | Click Here |
| _utmxx | This Google Analytics Website Optimiser cookie stores the variation this visitor is assigned to for each experiment, so the visitor has a consistent experience on this site. | Persistent: 2 years | Click Here |
b) Third party cookies
Cookies are also set by third parties on the Site. More information about cookies placed by third parties and how to restrict or block their cookies can be accessed by following the link to their website.
| Name | Purpose/typical content | Type and duration | How to reject or delete this cookie |
|---|---|---|---|
| Addthis | Addthis set cookies to deliver advertisements that are relevant to your interests or behaviour online such as visiting a particular advertisers website and products. | Persistent up to 3 years. | www.addthis.com/privacy/opt-out |
| Doubleclick (Google) | This cookie is used to serve advertising, deliver and report on ads served on the website. The cookie also tracks what advertisments the user has seen and how often. | Persistent 2 years. | www.google.co.uk/privacy/ads/ |
| The facebook cookies are used to let Facebook know you are logged in to Facebook, to help you use social plugins and share buttons. | Persistent up to 2 years. | www.facebook.com/help/?page=176591669064814 | |
| Google Analytics | These cookies collect statistics on visitors to the site, where vistors have come to the site from and the pages they visited. This helps us to understand how people use the site and to make improvements to our site. | Persistent 2 years. | tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout |
| Twitter.com | Twitter use cookies to better understand how you interact with their Services. | At end of session. | twitter.com/privacy |
This Site uses third-party advertising companies (such as Google AdSense) to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may set their own cookies and/or may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. This information includes the user's browser, operating system, IP address, ISP etc. If you would like more information about such practices click here . Please also note that:
- Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on this Site.
- Google's use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to you based on your visit to the Site and other sites on the Internet.
- You may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy .
The following is a list of sources of third party AdSense ads. This list as of time of viewing, may not be up to date as Google may add others in the future, To see the latest list provided by Google, please visit Google Adsense Third Party Vendors.
In addition to Adsense, this Site sells advertising slots to other third-party advertising networks and providers and these will change on a frequent basis. Below is a list of some of the more frequent advertisors used on this Site:
| Third Party Advertising Vendor | Address |
|---|---|
| Commission Junction | www.cj.com |
| HotChalk, Inc. | www.hotchalk.com/network-info/ |
| i-to-i TEFL | www.i-to-i.com |
| AdMotion | www.onlinetefl.com |
| Whitesmoke | www.whitesmoke.com |
In addition to cookies we use the following similar technologies in respect of your use of the Site:
- Pixel Gif’s - these are small image files that are placed within the body of our newsletters so we can understand whether these are read and if particular content in the newsletter is of interest. This way we can improve the relevance of the content of our communications to our readers;
- Flash cookies – We may use Adobe Flash Player to display video or image content. It may not be possible to block or restrict flash cookies using your browser setting, however information on how to control flash privacy and security settings is available from the Adobe website at: www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/security
Use of Your Information
By using this Site, you agree that we may collect, hold, process and use your information (including personal information) for the purpose of providing you with the Site services and developing our business which includes (without limitation):
- personalising your visits to the Site to improve the services provided to you;
- informing you about the latest changes to the Site, products, services or promotional offers that you might find interesting;
- customer service and support;
- communicating (and personalising such communication) with you;
- enabling you to share our content with others e.g. using an 'Email a friend' or 'Share this' functionality;
- conducting market research; and/or
- carrying out technical and statistical analysis to measure the performance of our services and the Site.
Sharing Your Personal Information
We may share information about you with suppliers that we engage to help us provide certain services and/or functionality e.g online payment processing. We will use reasonable endeavours to control and be responsible for the use of your information by such suppliers. Furthermore, by using the Site, you consent to the transfer of your personal information outside of the European Economic Area (which may not provide the same protection for such information as the European Economic Area provides) in the event that the processing of your information involves such a transfer.
We reserve the right to disclose your personal information to comply with applicable laws and government or regulatory bodies’ lawful requests for information.
We may transfer, sell or assign any of the information described in this policy to third parties as a result of a sale, merger, consolidation, change of control, transfer of assets or reorganisation of our business.
We will not sell or distribute your personal information to third parties unless we have your permission or are required by law to do so.
Keeping Your Personal Information Secure
We take the security of your personal information very seriously and have appropriate physical, technical and administrative procedures in place to help protect your personal information from unauthorized access, use or disclosure as required by law in England.
Accessing Your Personal Information
If you wish to review or receive copies of the personal information we hold about you, change your marketing preferences or have any other queries about this privacy policy, please write to us (including full details of your request) at the following address:
Privacy Team
UsingEnglish.com Ltd.
266-268 High Street,
Waltham Cross,
Hertfordshire,
EN8 7EA,
England.
We may charge a small administration fee (not exceeding the maximum permitted by law in England) in relation to fulfilling a request for access to personal information.
Unsubscribing from emails
If you wish to unsubscribe from newsletters from usingenglish.com, please click on the unsubscribe link in your email or amend your email preferences here. Other parts of the site may send you emails including notifications and reminders which you can control by modifying your user options from within your profile control panel here.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
If we change this privacy policy, we will post the revised privacy policy here with an updated effective date. If we make significant changes to the privacy policy, we may also notify you by other means such as sending an email or posting a notice on our home page.
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