The new “Cookie Law”

The use of cookies is regulated by specific provisions of EU data protection law. Article 5(3) of Directive 2002/58/EC  was amended by the Telecom Reforms Package to the effect that storing of cookies and gaining access to cookies  necessitates users’ prior informed consent (so-called informed “opt-in”). The new “Cookie Law” forms part of an EU Directive to be implemented as of 25th May 2011. As a company, we wish to inform you that as a visitor to our website that you can disable cookies in your native browser which eliminates tracking users’ surfing behaviour.

What is a Cookie?

A cookie is a small amount of information used by some web sites. A web site that sets cookies will ask your browser to place one or more cookies on your hard disk when you visit the site. Later, when you return to the site, your browser sends back the cookies that belong to the site.

How do Cookies work?

Before loading a web page that uses cookies, your browser handles the page’s cookies by doing two things:

  • Accepts or rejects any requests by the web site to set (store) one or more cookies on your computer.
  • Accepts or rejects any requests by the web site to read cookies it previously stored on your computer. A web site can’t actually read cookies or any other data on your computer—instead; your browser gets the cookies and sends them back to the web site.

Specifying How Your Browser Should Handle Cookies

You can specify how cookies should be handled by setting your cookie preferences and by using the Cookie Manager.

To change your cookie preferences:

  1. Open the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
  2. Under the Privacy & Security category, choose Cookies. (If no subcategories are visible, double-click the category to expand the list.)
  3. Click one of the radio buttons:
    • Disable cookies: Choose this to refuse all cookies.
    • Enable cookies for the originating web site only: Choose this if you don’t want to accept or return Foreign Cookies received through email (when the message contains a web page) are treated as foreign cookies.
    • Enable all cookies: Choose this to permit all web sites to set cookies on your computer and receive them
      back during subsequent visits. Note: If you select this option, and later choose to reject all cookies, you may still
      have some older cookies stored on your computer (though no new ones will be set).
  4. If you want to be notified when a web site tries to set a cookie, select “Warn me before storing a cookie.”

Managing Cookies Site-By-Site

To control cookies on a site-by-site basis:

  1. Open the Tasks menu, choose Privacy & Security, and then choose Cookie Manager.
  2. Choose “Unblock Cookies from this Site” or “Block Cookies from this Site.”

When you are warned (while browsing) that a web site is requesting to set a cookie, you can click Yes to allow or No to deny the cookie. You can also select the option for your browser to “Remember this decision.”

If you select “Remember this decision,” you will not be warned the next time that site tries to set or modify a cookie, and your “yes” or “no” response will still be in effect.

If you wish to change a remembered response later, use Cookie Manager to edit your list of automatically stored cookies.

To stop automatically accepting cookies from a site:

  1. Open the Tasks menu, choose Privacy & Security, then choose Cookie Manager.
  2. Choose View Stored Cookies from the submenu. The Cookie Manager window opens with a list of all the cookies stored on your computer.
  3. Click the Cookie Sites tab. The web sites for which you have allowed or denied cookies are listed.
  4. Click to select the site from which you no longer want to accept cookies, and then click Remove Cookie. The next time you visit that site, you will be warned if the site attempts to set a cookie.

Removing Cookies

Important: To remove cookies, follow the steps in this section. Do not try to edit the cookies file on your computer.

To remove one or more cookies from your computer:

  1. Open the Tasks menu, choose Privacy & Security, and then choose Cookie Manager.
  2. Choose View Stored Cookies from the submenu. The Cookie Manager window opens with a list of all the cookies stored on your computer.
  3. Select one or more cookies and click Remove Cookie, or click Remove All Cookies.

You can also choose to prevent the removed cookies from being re-accepted later.