Information about our use of cookies

Our website hostgrid.com (our Website) uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our Website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our Website and also allows us to improve our Website.

A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer if you agree. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer’s hard drive which is then used to identify the user or device and to collect information. Cookies are intended to make the interaction between users and websites faster and easier.

Cookies are typically assigned to one of four categories (referred to below), depending on their function and intended purpose.

We use the following cookies:

Strictly necessary cookies

These are cookies that are required for the operation of our Website. They include, for example, the service we use to record your choice of accepting or declining cookies on our Website.

Analytical/performance cookies

They allow us to recognise and count the number of 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.

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).

Targeting cookies

These cookies record your visit to our Website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make our Website and the advertising displayed on it more relevant to your interests. We may also share this information with third parties for this purpose.

You can find more information about the individual cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them in the table below:

Please note that third parties (including, for example, advertising networks and providers of external services like web traffic analysis services) may also use cookies, over which we have no control. These cookies are likely to be analytical/performance cookies or targeting cookies.

Connecting via social networks

Some of the features on our Website (the features) may include social networking features, such as the Facebook® “Like” button and widgets, “Share” buttons, and interactive mini-programs. Additionally, you may choose to use your own social networking logins from, for example, Facebook or LinkedIn®, to log into some of the features. If you choose to connect using a social networking or similar service, we may receive and store authentication information from that service to enable you to log in and other information that you may choose to share when you connect with the features. The features may collect information such as the web pages you visited and IP addresses, and may set cookies to enable the features to function properly. We are not responsible for the security or privacy of any information collected by these third parties. You should review the privacy statements or policies applicable to the third-party services you connect to, use or access. If you do not want your personal information shared with your social media account provider or other users of the social media service, please do not connect your social media account with your account for the features and do not participate in social sharing on the features.

Controlling and managing cookies

There are various ways in which you can control and manage cookies.

You block cookies by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of all or some cookies.

If you opt out of cookies and then delete all cookies, your opt out will not be saved and you will need to opt out again as this will then store a strictly necessary cookie so that your device will remember that you have opted out.

The settings you change will only apply to the device on which you change them and will not apply across all your devices. If you want to opt out of cookies on all your devices, you will need to change the settings on all of your advices individually.

Please note that if you block cookies this will impact on how our Website functions and in some cases (in particular with regard to strictly necessary cookies) you may not be able to access all or parts of our Website.

Other tracking technologies in addition to cookies

We use certain other tracking technologies in addition to cookies:

Local shared objects/Flash cookies: Flash cookies, also known as local shared objects, are designed to support browser content supported by Adobe® Flash. They are usually used to enable ads and video content on websites. Like other cookies, they will store information on your device, some of which will be specific to the Flash-enabled content. Flash cookies can only be deleted within Adobe Flash rather than via your browser. Please refer to the following help page for information on how to manage your privacy settings and deletion of Flash cookies: http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager.html.

Web beacons: Our web pages may contain electronic images known as web beacons (also called single-pixel gifs and transparent graphic images) that we use to help deliver cookies on our Website, count users who have visited those pages, deliver the features, and analyse the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns, for example. We may also include web beacons in our marketing email messages or newsletters to determine whether an email is opened or if links are clicked. Web beacons are also used to deliver you interest-based advertising.

Web server & application logs: Our servers automatically collect certain information to help us administer and protect our Website, analyse usage, and improve users’ experience. The information collected includes:

• IP address and browser type
• Device information including Unique Device Identifier (UDID), MAC address, Identifier For Advertisers (IFA), and similar identifiers we or others may assign
• Device operating system and other technical facts
• The city and country from which you access our Website
• Pages visited and content viewed, stored, and purchased
• Information or text entered
• Links and buttons clicked
• URLs visited before and after you use the features

“Do Not Track” Signals

Some browsers transmit Do Not Track (DNT) signals to websites. Due to the lack of a common interpretation of DNT signals throughout the industry, we do not currently alter, change or respond to DNT requests or signals from these browsers. We continue to monitor industry activity in this area and reassess our current DNT practices as necessary.