Cookie policy
What are 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.
Cookies may be either “persistent” cookies or “session” cookies: a persistent cookie will be stored by a web browser and will remain valid until its set expiry date, unless deleted by the user before the expiry date; a session cookie, on the other hand, will expire at the end of the user session, when the web browser is closed.
Cookies may not contain any information that personally identifies a user, but personal data that we store about you may be linked to the information stored in and obtained from cookies.
Different types of cookies
The following types of cookies may be used on our website:
- (a) Authentication and status – these cookies identify you when you visit our website and as you navigate our website, and to help us determine if you are logged into our website;
- (b) Shopping cart – these cookies are used to maintain the state of your shopping cart as you navigate our website;
- (c) Personalisation – these cookies are used to store information about your preferences and to personalise our website for you;
- (d) Security – these cookies are used as an element of the security measures used to protect user accounts, including preventing fraudulent use of login credentials, and to protect our website and services generally;
- (e) Advertising – these cookies are used to help us to display advertisements that will be relevant to you;
- (f) Analysis – these cookies are used to help us to analyse the use and performance of our website and services; and
- (g) Cookie consent – we use cookies to store your preferences in relation to the use of cookies more generally.
Cookies that we use
- (a) PPS – We do a simple check to confirm whether the user has acknowledged the information provided in Cookies & Privacy pop-up.
| No | Name | Duration | Description |
| 1 | privacy-accepted | persistent | This local storage key is used to check whether the user has acknowledged the information provided in Cookies & Privacy pop-up. |
- (b) Google Analytics – Tracks analytical data including Country, Date and Time of visit, Entry and Exit of the website, user behaviour data whilst on the site and search analytics on how users find the website.
| No | Name | Duration | Description |
| 1 | _ga | 2 years | Used to distinguish users. |
| 2 | _gid | 24 hours | Used to distinguish users. |
| 3 | _gat | 1 minute | Used to throttle request rate. |
Cookies used by our service providers
Our service providers use cookies and those cookies may be stored on your computer when you visit our website.
- (a) Google Analytics – Google Analytics gathers information about the use of our website by means of cookies. The information gathered is used to create reports about the use of our website. You can find out more about Google’s use of information by visiting https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/ and you can review Google’s privacy policy at https://policies.google.com/privacy.
- (b) Google AdSense – We publish Google AdSense advertisements on our website, together with advertisements from the following advertisers and advertising networks that are distributed by Google. The advertisements may be personalised to reflect your interests. To help determine your interests Google and its partners use cookies. The cookies are used to track your previous visits to our website and your visits to other websites. You can opt out of Google’s personalised advertising by visiting https://www.google.com/settings/ads and you can opt out of third party cookies use for personalised advertising by visiting http://www.aboutads.info. You can review Google’s privacy policy at https://policies.google.com/privacy.
- (c) Hotjar – Hotjar cookies are responsible for displaying the correct content to our website users without personally identifying anyone.
| No | Name | Duration | Description |
| 1 | _hjClosedSurveyInvites | 365 days | Hotjar cookie that is set once a user interacts with an External Link Survey invitation modal. It is used to ensure that the same invite does not reappear if it has already been shown. |
| 2 | _hjDonePolls | 365 days | Hotjar cookie that is set once a user completes a survey using the On-site Survey widget. It is used to ensure that the same survey does not reappear if it has already been filled in. |
| 3 | _hjMinimizedPolls | 365 days | Hotjar cookie that is set once a user minimizes an On-site Survey widget. It is used to ensure that the widget stays minimized when the user navigates through our site. |
| 4 | _hjShownFeedbackMessage | 365 days | Hotjar cookie that is set when a user minimizes or completes Incoming Feedback. This is done so that the Incoming Feedback will load as minimized immediately if the user navigates to another page where it is set to show. |
| 5 | _hjSessionTooLarge | Session | Causes Hotjar to stop collecting data if a session becomes too large. This is determined automatically by a signal from the WebSocket server if the session size exceeds the limit. |
| 6 | _hjid | 365 days | Hotjar cookie that is set when the customer first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the Hotjar User ID, unique to that site on the browser. This ensures that behavior in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID. |
| 7 | _hjRecordingLastActivity | Session | This should be found in Session storage (as opposed to cookies). This gets updated when a user recording starts and when data is sent through the WebSocket (the user performs an action that Hotjar records). |
| 8 | _hjTLDTest | Session | When the Hotjar script executes we try to determine the most generic cookie path we should use, instead of the page hostname. This is done so that cookies can be shared across subdomains (where applicable). To determine this, we try to store the _hjTLDTest cookie for different URL substring alternatives until it fails. After this check, the cookie is removed. |
| 9 | _hjUserAttributesHash | Session | User Attributes sent through the Hotjar Identify API are cached for the duration of the session in order to know when an attribute has changed and needs to be updated. |
| 10 | _hjCachedUserAttributes | Session | This cookie stores User Attributes which are sent through the Hotjar Identify API, whenever the user is not in the sample. Collected attributes will only be saved to Hotjar servers if the user interacts with a Hotjar Feedback tool, but the cookie will be used regardless of whether a Feedback tool is present. |
| 11 | _hjLocalStorageTest | Under 100ms | This cookie is used to check if the Hotjar Tracking Script can use local storage. If it can, a value of 1 is set in this cookie. The data stored in_hjLocalStorageTest has no expiration time, but it is deleted almost immediately after it is created. |
| 12 | _hjIncludedInPageviewSample | 30 minutes | This cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether that user is included in the data sampling defined by our site’s pageview limit. |
| 13 | _hjIncludedInSessionSample | 30 minutes | This cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether that user is included in the data sampling defined by our site’s daily session limit. |
| 14 | _hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress | 30 minutes | This cookie is used to detect the first pageview session of a user. This is a True/False flag set by the cookie. |
| 15 | _hjFirstSeen | Session | This is set to identify a new user’s first session. It stores a true/false value, indicating whether this was the first time Hotjar saw this user. It is used by Recording filters to identify new user sessions. |
| 16 | _hjViewportId | Session | This stores information about the user viewport such as size and dimensions. |
| 17 | _hjRecordingEnabled | Session | This is added when a Recording starts and is read when the recording module is initialized to see if the user is already in a recording in a particular session. |
| 18 | _hjSessionRejected | Session | If present, this cookie will be set to ‘1’ for the duration of a user’s session, if Hotjar rejected the session from connecting to our WebSocket due to server overload. This cookie is only applied in extremely rare situations to prevent severe performance issues. |
| 19 | _hjSessionResumed | Session | A cookie that is set when a session/recording is reconnected to Hotjar servers after a break in connection. |
- (f) WordPress – You can review WordPress’ cookie policy at https://wordpress.org/about/privacy/cookies/
| No | Name | Duration | Description |
| 1 | wordpress_test_cookie | Session | Tests that the browser accepts cookies. |
Managing cookies
Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies and to delete cookies. The methods for doing so vary from browser to browser, and from version to version. You can however obtain up-to-date information about blocking and deleting cookies via these links:
- (a) Chrome – https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95647;
- (b) Firefox – https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enhanced-tracking-protection-firefox-desktop;
- (c) Opera – https://help.opera.com/en/latest/security-and-privacy/;
- (d) Internet Explorer – https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/17442/windows-internet-explorer-delete-manage-cookies;
- (e) Safari – https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/safari/manage-cookies-and-website-data-sfri11471/mac; and
- (f) Edge – https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/4468242/microsoft-edge-browsing-data-and-privacy.
Blocking all cookies will have a negative impact upon the usability of many websites.
If you block cookies, you will not be able to use all the features on our website.
Cookie preferences
For further information about our use of cookies, contact us via e-mail at info@pps.financial.