What is a cookie?
A cookie is a small text file that is sent by a website server to your browser and stored on your computer. Cookies allow website operators to accumulate useful information, such as whether the computer (or its user) has visited the website before. Cookies are needed for a number of functions which make websites work, or work more efficiently, and they can provide information to website owners about how you use their website. Cookies can also be used to show you adverts that are relevant to you, based on your browsing habits, to personalise your user experience.
How do we use cookies?
We use cookies to monitor how people use our website, including estimating audience size and patterns of use, to help us provide you with a better service. Cookies also make it easier for you to use the website on future visits, and allow us to personalise the content of the website to you by recording information about your preferences.
We use both persistent cookies (which expire on a specified date) and session cookies (which expire when you close your browser).
The cookies used on this website have been categorised based on definitions given in the ICC UK Cookie Guide. We use the following cookies:
- Strictly necessary cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website.
- Analytical/performance cookies. These allow us to recognise and count our website’s visitors and to see how visitors move around our website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily. Some of our performance cookies may be managed by third parties.
- Functionality cookies. These are used to recognise you when you return to our website. This enables us to personalise our content for you, greet you by name and remember your preferences (for example, your choice of language or region – or your cookies and marketing preferences).
- Targeting cookies.These cookies record your visit to our website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. They may be used to display relevant information or adverts to you based on the pages that you visit.
Please note that third parties (including, for example providers of external services like web traffic analysis services such as Google Analytics, or advertising services and vendors) may also use cookies, over which we have no control. These cookies are likely to be analytical/performance cookies or targeting cookies.
What cookies do we use?
We use the following first and third party cookies on the Speeds Medical Supplies website:
| Domain | Cookie name (examples) | Description | Expires |
| https://speedshealthcare.co.uk | _ga | Used to distinguish users. | 2 years |
| _gid | Used to distinguish users. | 24 hours | |
| _gat | Used to throttle request rate. | 1 minute | |
| AMP_TOKEN | Contains a token that can be used to retrieve a Client ID from AMP Client ID service. Other possible values indicate opt-out, inflight request or an error retrieving a Client ID from AMP Client ID service. | 30 seconds to 1 year | |
| _gac_<property-id> | Contains campaign related information for the user. | 90 days | |
| __utma | Used to distinguish users and sessions. The cookie is created when the javascript library executes and no existing __utma cookies exists. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics. | 2 years from set/update | |
| __utmt | Used to throttle request rate. | 10 minutes | |
| __utmb | Used to determine new sessions/visits. The cookie is created when the javascript library executes and no existing __utmb cookies exists. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics. | 30 mins from set/update | |
| __utmc | Not used in ga.js. Set for interoperability with urchin.js. Historically, this cookie operated in conjunction with the __utmb cookie to determine whether the user was in a new session/visit. | End of browser session | |
| __utmz | Stores the traffic source or campaign that explains how the user reached your site. The cookie is created when the javascript library executes and is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics. | 6 months from set/update | |
| __utmv | Used to store visitor-level custom variable data. This cookie is created when a developer uses the _setCustomVar method with a visitor level custom variable. This cookie was also used for the deprecated _setVar method. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics. | 2 years from set/update |
You decide which cookies we use
We understand that not everyone has the same preferences when it comes to cookies and, if you wish, you can configure cookie settings in your web browser. You can find out more about how to do this at the following links:
However, please bear in mind that if you don’t allow us to use certain cookies, it may prevent you from accessing parts of our website or result in a loss of functionality which degrades your experience of the website.
Further information about cookies
There’s a lot of good information about cookies available online. For more information about cookies generally visit allaboutcookies.org.
Get in touch
Please contact us if you have any questions about how we use cookies or about your privacy.