The magazine for the auto industry Subscribe now

Privacy & Cookies Policy

We are extremely concerned with protecting your privacy and confidentiality. We understand that all users of our site are quite rightly concerned to know that their data will not be used for any purpose unintended by them, and will not fall into the hands of a third party. Our policy is both specific and strict. If you think our policy falls short of your expectations or that we are failing to abide by our policy, do please tell us.

We do not share, or sell, or disclose to a third party, any personally identifiable information collected at this site. If this policy should change in the future then we shall provide notification in advance and the opportunity for all users to indicate whether or not they would prefer that we do not provide the information to third parties as proposed.

Here is a list of the information we collect, and why it is necessary to collect it:

1 Basic identification and contact information

such as your name and contact details. This information is used:

1.1 to provide you with the services which you request;

1.2 to maintain our accounts;

1.3 for billing;

1.4 to enable us to answer your enquiries;

1.5 for verifying your identity for security purposes;

1.6 for marketing our services and products;

1.7 to help make our web site as useful to you as possible;

1.8 information which does not identify any individual may be used in a general way by us or third parties, to provide class information, for example relating to demographics or usage of a particular page or service.

2 Your domain name and email address

are recognised by our servers and the pages that you visit are recorded. This information is used:

2.1 in a collective way not referable to any particular individual, for the purpose of quality control and improvement of our site;

2.2 to send you news about the services to which you have signed up;

2.3 to tell you about other of our services.

3 Information volunteered by you

for a particular purpose, for example a personal profile, survey, job application form, or contest. This information will be used exclusively for the purpose for which you have provided it. Information is disclosed to third parties only where the third party concerned qualifies in whatever way the website page requires. We will make absolutely clear on the face of the page, any intention to publicise the name of a winner.

4 Affiliate information

This is information given to us in the course of your business and ours as you have applied to join our affiliate scheme. Such information is retained for business use only. We undertake to preserve the confidentiality of the information and of the terms of our relationship.

This information is used:

4.1 to maintain our accounts and affiliate records;

4.2 for billing;

4.3 to enable us to answer your enquiries;

4.4 for verifying your identity for security purposes;

4.5 to send you news about the services to which you have signed up;

4.6 to tell you about other of our services.

5 Business information

This is information given to us in the course of your business and ours, such as in relation to your application to partner with us or advertise with us. Such information is retained for business use only. We undertake to preserve the confidentiality of the information and of the terms of our relationship. It is not used for any other purpose. We expect you and any partner to reciprocate this policy.

6 Disclosure to Government

and their agencies. We are subject to the law like everyone else. We may be required to give information to legal authorities if they so request or if they have the proper authorisation such as a search warrant or court order.

7 Information request

At any time you may review or update the personally identifiable information that we hold about you, by contacting us. To better safeguard your information, we will also take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting access or making corrections to your information.

8 Cookies

A cookie is a file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by a web server to a web browser and is stored by the browser. The identifier is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. This enables the web server to identify and track the web browser.

We may use both “session” cookies and “persistent” cookies on the website. Session cookies will be deleted from your computer when you close your browser. Persistent cookies will remain stored on your computer until deleted, or until they reach a specified expiry date.

We will use the session cookies to: keep track of you whilst you navigate the website; keep track of items in your shopping basket; prevent fraud and increase website security. We will use the persistent cookies to enable our website to recognise you when you visit and keep track of your preferences in relation to your use of our website.

We use Google Analytics to analyse the use of this website. Google Analytics generates statistical and other information about website use by means of cookies, which are stored on users’ computers. The information generated relating to our website is used to create reports about the use of the website. Google will store this information. Google’s privacy policy is available at: http://www.google.com/privacypolicy.html.

Most browsers allow you to reject all cookies, whilst some browsers allow you to reject just third party cookies. For example, in Internet Explorer (version 9) you can refuse all cookies by clicking “Tools”, “Internet options”, “Privacy”, and selecting “Block All Cookies” using the sliding selector. Blocking all cookies will, however, have a negative impact upon the usability of many websites.

9 Cookies and personal information

Cookies do not contain any information that personally identifies you, but personal information that we store about you may be linked, by us, to the information stored in and obtained from cookies.

10 Blocking cookies

Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies. For example:

(a) in Internet Explorer (version 9) you can block cookies using the cookie handling override settings available by clicking “Tools”, “Internet Options”, “Privacy” and then “Advanced”;

(b) in Firefox (version 16) you can block all cookies by clicking “Tools”, “Options”, “Privacy”, selecting “Use custom settings for history” from the drop-down menu, and unticking “Accept cookies from sites”; and

(c) in Chrome (version 23), you can block all cookies by accessing the “Customise and control” menu, and clicking “Settings”, “Show advanced settings” and “Content settings”, and then selecting “Block sites from setting any data” under the “Cookies” heading.

Blocking all cookies will, however, have a negative impact upon the usability of many websites.

5. Deleting cookies
You can also delete cookies already stored on your computer. For example:

(a) in Internet Explorer (version 9), you must manually delete cookie files (you can find instructions for doing so at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/278835;

(b) in Firefox (version 16), you can delete cookies by clicking “Tools”, “Options”, “Privacy” and then “Show Cookies”, and then clicking “Remove All Cookies”; and

(c) in Chrome (version 23), you can delete all cookies by accessing the “Customise and control” menu, and clicking “Settings”, “Show advanced settings” and “Clear browsing data”, and then selecting “Delete cookies and other site and plug-in data” before clicking “Clear browsing data”.

Again, doing this may have a negative impact on the usability of many websites.