What are cookies?

Most websites you visit will use cookies to improve your user experience by enabling the website to ‘remember’ your preferences and actions, either for the duration of your visit (session cookie) or for repeat visits (persistent cookie).

Cookies do a number of jobs, such as letting you navigate between pages efficiently, storing your preferences and generally improving your experience of a website. Cookies make the interaction between you and the website faster, easier and sometimes possible. If a website doesn’t use cookies, it will think you are a new visitor every time you move to a new page on the site.

Many websites will also use cookies to enable them to analyse traffic (tracking cookie) through the website, by looking at visitor actions and location, in order to improve the user experience in the long term.

What exactly are cookies?

A cookie, also known as an HTTP cookie, web cookie or browser cookie, is a simple text file that is sent from a website’s server to a user’s device while a user is browsing a website. It is stored on a user’s device for a specific period, which is dependent on the type of cookie. Only that server will be able to retrieve or read the contents of that cookie and each cookie is unique to your web browser. It will contain some anonymous information such as a unique identifier and the site name and some digits and numbers. The website can then read the information on that cookie, allowing it to remember things like your preferences or what’s in your shopping basket.

For more information on cookies and cookie legislation, please visit the following sites:

What does PhonesOnline use cookies for?

PhonesOnline uses cookies to improve functionality, performance and facilitate social media interaction for users, while on the PhonesOnline website. Below is more information on the types of cookies PhonesOnline uses and why we use them.

Functionality cookies

These cookies allow users to customise how a website looks for them: they can remember usernames, language preferences and regions and can be used to provide more personal services like local language.

Performance cookies

This type of cookie collects information in aggregate about how visitors use our site, which allows us to improve its performance over time. Performance cookies only collect anonymous information, and allow us to:

  • Monitor the performance of our site
  • Collect information about how people use the site so we can improve it
  • Trial new features on a small sample of users

Social media cookies

These cookies allow you to connect with social media, so you can share and promote your PhonesOnline activity within LinkedIn.

What cookies does PhonesOnline use?

Below is a list of the cookies that PhonesOnline uses, the information they hold, and their purpose.

Cookie name Expiry Purpose

Google Analytics:
__utma
__utmb
__utmc
__utmz


2 years
1 day
End of session
6 months

We use Google Analytics to monitor traffic levels, search queries and visits to this website. Google Analytics stores IP address anonymously on its servers in the US, and neither PhonesOnline nor Google associate your IP address with any personally identifiable information. These cookies enable Google to determine whether you are a return visitor to the site, and to track the pages that you visit during your session.

exp_last_activity
exp_last_visit
exp_tracker

One year
One year
End of session

These cookies are used to track a user’s session, when they last visited or did something on the site. No personal information is stored in these cookies, only timestamps related to that browser session.

NID

6 months

A unique identifier used by Google applications to store user preference information on PhonesOnline.ie

PREF

2 years

Google cookie to remember our users’ basic preferences, such as the fact that a user wants search results in English.

COOKIE name COOKIE Description
CART The association with your shopping cart.
CATEGORY_INFO Stores the category info on the page, that allows to display pages more quickly.
COMPARE The items that you have in the Compare Products list.
CURRENCY Your preferred currency
CUSTOMER An encrypted version of your customer id with the store.
CUSTOMER_AUTH An indicator if you are currently logged into the store.
CUSTOMER_INFO An encrypted version of the customer group you belong to.
CUSTOMER_SEGMENT_IDS Stores the Customer Segment ID
EXTERNAL_NO_CACHE A flag, which indicates whether caching is disabled or not.
FRONTEND You sesssion ID on the server.
GUEST-VIEW Allows guests to edit their orders.
LAST_CATEGORY The last category you visited.
LAST_PRODUCT The most recent product you have viewed.
NEWMESSAGE Indicates whether a new message has been received.
NO_CACHE Indicates whether it is allowed to use cache.
PERSISTENT_SHOPPING_CART A link to information about your cart and viewing history if you have asked the site.
POLL The ID of any polls you have recently voted in.
POLLN Information on what polls you have voted on.
RECENTLYCOMPARED The items that you have recently compared.
STF Information on products you have emailed to friends.
STORE The store view or language you have selected.
USER_ALLOWED_SAVE_COOKIE Indicates whether a customer allowed to use cookies.
VIEWED_PRODUCT_IDS The products that you have recently viewed.
WISHLIST An encrypted list of products added to your Wishlist.
WISHLIST_CNT The number of items in your Wishlist.

How to manage your cookies

If you don't want to receive cookies, you can modify your browser so that it notifies you when cookies are sent to it or you can refuse cookies altogether. You can also delete cookies that have already been set. If you wish to restrict or block web browser cookies which are set on your device then you can do this through your browser settings; the Help function within your browser should tell you how. Alternatively, you may wish to visit www.aboutcookies.org, which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of desktop browsers.

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