What is a cookie?

A cookie is a text file that may be stored by your browser software in a dedicated space of the hard drive of your Terminal* in the course of your use of an online service. A cookie file enables its issuer to identify the terminal in which it  is stored, throughout the period of validity or of registration of the cookie.

* the term Terminal means the hardware (computer, tablet, smartphone, etc.) that you use to access or display a web site, a mobile application, any advertising content, etc.

 

What information is collected through the cookies?

  • The duration of your connection to the website
  • The type of operating systems of your device
  • The version of the browser software used on your device
  • The brand and model of your device

 

The Cookies that we issue on the Site

When you connect to our Site, depending on your choices, we may install various cookies in your Terminal that enable us to recognize the browser that you use on your Terminal throughout the period of validity of the cookie involved.

The cookies that we issue are designed:

  • To help us draw up statistics and determine the extent of the traffic and use of the various elements comprising our Site (sections and content viewed, browsing patterns), to enable us to improve the interest and usability of our services, as well as the visibility of the content that we publish,
  • To enable or facilitate your browsing of the Site, or to provide you with the online communication services that you request during your browsing, and thus:
  • To adapt the presentation of our Site to your Terminal’s display preferences (language used, display resolution, operating system used, etc.) during your visits to our Site, depending on the viewing or reading hardware and software incorporated into your Terminal,
  • To store information concerning any forms that you may have filled in on our Site (e.g. registration or access to your account) or concerning any products, services or information that you may have chosen on our Site (e.g. a service that you subscribed to, the content of a shopping basket, a wish list, etc.);
  • To enable you to access the private and personal spaces of our Site, such as your account, thanks to identifiers or data that you may have entrusted to us beforehand,
  • To implement security measures, for instance when you are asked to connect once again to a given content or service after a certain time lapse.

 

The Cookies issued by third parties on our Site

The issuing and the use of cookies by third parties are subject to the privacy protection policies of these third parties. We shall inform you about the purpose of the cookies that we know of and the ways in which you may take certain decisions with regard to these cookies.

  • Cookies issued by third party applications incorporated into our Site:

Our Site may comprise various software applications provided by third parties that enable you to share content from our Site with other people or to let these other people know about something you saw on our Site or give them your opinion concerning any of the content of our Site. This is the case for instance of the “Share” and “Like” buttons provided by social networks (such as “Facebook”, “Twitter”, etc.).

A social network that provides such a software button may identify you thanks to this button, even if you do not click on this button while browsing our Site. This type of software button may enable the social network involved to track your browsing of our Site, merely by virtue of the fact that you have an open session with the social network in question on your Terminal at the time when you are browsing our Site.

We don’t have any control over the process used by the social networks to gather information about your browsing of our Site linked to the personal data that they hold about you. Please see the data protection policies of the social networks in order to become acquainted with the purposes for which they may gather data about your browsing using these software buttons, e.g. advertising. These data protection policies must for instance enable you to exercise your rights before these social networks, for instance by configuring your accounts with each of them.

  • Cookies issued on our Site by third parties:

Our Site may contain cookies issued by third parties (advertising agencies, traffic measurement companies, etc.) enabling the latter to gather information about the browsing of any terminals that access our Site, throughout the period    of validity of these cookies, and in particular in order to assess the effectiveness of our paid referencing campaigns with the search engines.

 

Your choices regarding the storage of cookies

You have several possibilities when it comes to managing cookies. Any configuration that you perform may however modify your experience of browsing the Internet and your access to certain services that require the use of cookies.

You may choose at any point in time to express and to modify your wishes in terms of cookies, using the means described below.

The choices offered by your browser software: you may configure your browser software to allow cookies to be stored on your Terminal, or on the contrary, to ensure that they are rejected by your Terminal, either systematically, or depending on their issuer. You may also configure your browser software to prompt you to accept or reject individual cookies before they are stored on your Terminal. For more information, please see section (c) below entitled “How to set your preferences depending on your browser”

 

a. Consenting to the storage of cookies

The storage of a cookie on a terminal is essentially subordinated to the will of the user of the Terminal, which the latter may express upon their first connection to the Site via the cookies banner, and freely modify at any point in time through the choices that are provided to them by their browser application concerning cookies, or via a cookies administration software application which is available at the footer of the website “Cookie settings” link. Should you have accepted, in your browser software, the storage of cookies in your Terminal, the cookies that are incorporated into the pages and content that you view may be stored temporarily in a dedicated space on your Terminal. They may only be read by their issuer.

 

b. Rejecting cookies

Should you reject the storage of cookies in your Terminal, or should you delete the cookies that are stored there, you shall no longer benefit from a number of functionalities that are necessary to browse some of the spaces of our Site. This would for instance apply should you subsequently attempt to access our content or services that require you to identify yourself. This would also be the case should we or our service providers not be able to recognize the type of browser used by your Terminal, its language and display parameters or the country from which your Terminal appears to be connected to the Internet, for purposes of technological compatibility.

We hereby disclaim liability for the consequences of the improper operation of our services resulting from our inability to store or to read the cookies needed for their operation and that you shall have rejected or deleted.

 

c. How to set your preferences depending on your browser

The configuration of each browser is different. It is in general described in your browser’s help menu. We therefore recommend that you access and read it in order to find out how to set your preferences in terms of cookies.

If your Terminal is used by several persons and has several browsers, we cannot guarantee with certainty that the services and advertisements destined for your Terminal do indeed correspond to your own use of this Terminal as opposed to another user of this Terminal.

Whether you share the use of your Terminal with other people and/or configure the cookies parameters of your browser is purely your decision and you are fully responsible for same.