Cookie Policy

This is part of our Privacy Policy which you can view HERE

What are cookies?

Cookies are pieces of data, normally stored in text files, that websites place on visitors’ computers to store a range of information, usually specific to that visitor – or rather the device they are using to view the site – like the browser or mobile phone.

They were created to overcome a limitation in web technology. Web pages are ‘stateless’ – which means that they have no memory, and cannot easily pass information between each other. So cookies provide a kind of memory for web pages.

Cookies allow you to login on one page, then move around to other pages and stay logged in. They allow you to set preferences for the display of a page, and for these to be

remembered the next time you return to it.

Source: https://cookiepedia.co.uk/all-about-cookies

How we use cookies

You can use the Visa Smith website (This Site) freely and without the need to register or login. The amount of information tracked as a result of your visit is limited to the cookies used to help us understand user behaviour or to ensure our website functions correctly and in a user friendly fashion.

This means that we put a small piece of text (the “cookie”) in storage on your web browser. This cookie lets us know that all the different things you do on our site are done by the same person.

We do not collect or harvest any personally identifiable information and we do not make any attempt to find out the identities of those using our websites. The only information we have about your identity is the information you explicitly provide to us through submission forms and enquiries.

Third party cookies

We analyse user behaviour in order to better serve you and other visitors (‘Analytics’). Tracking your activity through our site (what you click on, how long you stay) helps us make better decisions about content and design. These create cookies within your browser.

You may notice some cookies that are not related to This Site. When you visit a page with content embedded from, for example, YouTube or Google Maps, you may be presented with cookies from these websites. We do not control the dissemination of these cookies. You should check the relevant third party websites for more information about these.

Similarly This Site may contain links to other websites, such as Google Maps. Once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website.

We do not sell any personally identifiable information to any third parties.

How long do these cookies remain for?

How long a cookie resides in your browser depends on the cookie. Some are purely for your current session and some set an expiry date in the future. Tracking cookies that help to analyse the pages visited or the manner in which a user navigated around the website may remain longer.

How to browse without cookies

If for any reason you decide that you do not like cookies, you can simply change your browser settings.

The method is different depending on the browser or device (eg. laptop, tablet, mobile phone) you use and a simple search will help you with the latest method for doing this in from within your environment.

There is information that can help you do this here: 

https://privacypolicies.com/blog/how-to-delete-cookies/

What cookies do we use?

Source: http://cookiepedia.co.uk/

_gid

About this cookie: This cookie name is asssociated with Google Universal Analytics. It appears to store and update a unique value for each page visited. The main purpose of this cookie is: Performance

_gat

About this cookie: This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics, according to documentation it is used to throttle the request rate – limiting the collection of data on high traffic sites. The main purpose of this cookie is: Performance

_ga

About this cookie: This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics. This cookie is used to distinguish unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier. It is included in each page request in a site and used to calculate visitor, session and campaign data for the sites analytics reports.

The main purpose of this cookie is: Performance.

You can find out more about Google cookies and Google Analytics

here: https://policies.google.com/technologies/types

DYNSRV

About this cookie: This cookie is believed to be used for load balancing to manage server traffic demand. The main purpose of this cookie is: Strictly Necessary.

Third party

The exact nature of the cookies that are deployed by these Third Parties depends on your interaction with them via your login preferences on their sites and whether you are logged in to them at the time of browsing.

Youtube

PREF

This cookie stores your preferences and other information, in particular preferred language, how many search results you wish to be shown on your page, and whether or not you wish to have Google’s SafeSearch filter turned on. Expiry: 10 years from set/ update.

VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE

A cookie that YouTube sets that measures your bandwidth to determine whether you get the new player interface or the old. Expiry: 8 months from set/update

YSC

This cookie registers a unique ID to keep statistics of what videos from YouTube the user has seen. Expires: At end of session

GPS

Registers a unique ID on mobile devices to enable tracking based on geographical GPS location.

Expires: At end of session

Other

One of the main advertising cookies on non-Google sites is named ‘IDE‘ and is stored in browsers under the domain doubleclick.net.

Last update: March 2025