Cookie Notice
Look After My Bills Cookie Notice
This Cookie Notice explains how This Is The Big Deal Ltd the owner and operator of www.lookaftermybills.com (“referred to as “Look After My Bills”, “we”, “us” and “our”) use cookies and similar technologies. Whenever you use the features and services we offer, information may be collected through the use of cookies and similar technologies.
This cookie notice provides the following information for users:
What are cookies and similar technologies?
Cookies are small text files which are downloaded to your computer, tablet or mobile phone when you visit a website or application. The website or application may retrieve these cookies from your web browser (e.g. Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome) each time you visit, so they can recognise you, remember your preferences and provide you with a more secure online experience.
Generally, cookies are very useful and are a common method used by almost every website you visit because they help to make your online experience as smooth as possible. For security reasons, many websites will not function at all without the use of cookies (or other similar technologies, such as “web beacons” or “tags”).
Cookies generally do not hold any information to identify an individual person, but are instead used to identify a browser on an individual machine.
Cookies can be referred to as session cookies or persistent cookies, depending on how long they are used:
- Session cookies only last for your online session and disappear from your computer or device when you close your browser.
- Persistent cookies stay on your computer or device after the browser has been closed and last for the period of time specified in the cookie. These persistent cookies may be checked each time you visit the site where the cookie was generated or, in the case of third-party cookies, from another site that also uses the same service.
They can also be referred to as first party or third party cookies, depending on who sets them:
First party cookies are set by the website you are visiting; and Third party cookies are cookies used within our services which are set by other organisations
If you would like to find out more about cookies, you can visit All About Cookies
Web beacons
Web beacons are a similar technology to cookies; and just like cookies, they can help to deliver an improved online experience. Essentially, they are a clear picture file that is used to keep track of a customer’s navigation through a website or series of websites.
They may also be referred to as “tags”, and are normally used by websites that use third-party traffic monitoring and tracking services, such as web analytics. Web beacons can be used in combination with cookies to gain an understanding of how a website’s users navigate through the site.
What are the different types of cookies?
When you use our website, the following types of cookie may be set on your device:
Essential or ‘Strictly Necessary’ cookies
These cookies are essential in helping you to make use of the features and services we offer on the Look After My Bills website. Without these cookies, the services you want to use (such as getting an energy quote) cannot be provided. These cookies do not gather information about you that could be used to identify you, and they do not monitor or remember where you have been on the internet.
Functional cookies
These cookies allow us to provide you with a better online experience when you use our website. They are used to remember your preferences on our websites and to provide enhanced, more personal features. They do not gather or store any information which would allow us to identify you personally.
Analytical Performance and Measurement cookies
Performance cookies help us to understand how our customers use our site and to better develop our services. Sometimes, the services we use to collect this information may be operated by other companies on our behalf. They may use similar technologies to cookies, known as “web beacons” or “tags”. These are anonymous and, as they are only used for statistical purposes, they do not contain or collect any information that identifies you.
Targeting or ‘Behavioural Advertising’ cookies
We have relationships with carefully selected and monitored suppliers and service providers (third parties) who may also set cookies during your visit. The purpose of these cookies is “online behavioural advertising” (also known as “behavioural targeting” or “remarketing”), which is a means of showing you relevant products and services based on what you appear to be interested in. Although these cookies can track your visits around the web they don’t know who you are. Without these cookies, online advertisements you encounter will be less relevant to you and your interests. These may include social media cookies which are set by social media services when, for example, you engage with our content on or through a site such as Facebook. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other sites you visit.
If you would like more information about online behavioural advertising, including how to opt-out of these cookies, please visit: http://www.youronlinechoices.com/ or see here our section on How can users manage or opt out of cookies?
What are cookies used for?
Look After My Bills, together with our trusted partners, uses cookies in combination with other information we maintain for a number of purposes, including the following:
1. Essential and Functional Cookies
We use these cookies to enable certain online functionality including to:
- maintain your settings and authenticate your identity while you are logged in to our services;
- ensure your journey through our site and to our partners is seamless;
- access your information so we can provide you with personalised content and experiences;
- remember previous entries as part of your quote application;
- understand which referral sites brought you to us;
- reward affiliates who have introduced you to us and ensure you receive cashback you may be owed;
- support security measures and to assist in identifying possible fraudulent or abusive activities.
If you object to the use of essential and functional cookies please see our section on How can users manage or opt out of cookies?
2. Analytical Performance and Measurement Cookies
We use these cookies to measure users’ behaviour so we can keep our products and services relevant, easy to use and up to date. For example, we can see which products and services are most popular, identify when and where errors occur, and test different versions of a page in order to provide an improved online experience.
These cookies enable us to analyse and measure which pages on our site are interacted with, how long for and which links are followed. The data collected will generally be aggregated to provide trends and usage patterns for business analysis, site/platform improvement and performance metrics and to inform our advertising and marketing strategies. The resulting analysis can also be shared with our business partners.
If you object to the use of analytical performance and measurement cookies please see our section on How can users manage or opt out of cookies?
3. Targeting and Behavioural Advertising Cookies
We use these cookies to:
- deliver content and marketing communications tailored to your interests based on information from your visit;
- measure general user behaviour across our sites and third party sites to build a profile based on users browsing patterns so that we can target advertising to users that will be more relevant to users’ interests;
- display relevant advertising to you on other sites, based on your web search activity;
- serve you personalised advertising on social media platforms, such as facebook.
We cannot control nor do we have access to any cookies placed on your computer by third party advertisers and sponsors.
For more detailed information about the third parties who we work with on targeting and behavioural advertising, please click here.
If you object to the use of targeting and behavioural advertising cookies please see our section on How can users manage or opt out of cookies?
4. Other Cookies and Web Beacons
Fraud prevention
Our website also uses both first and third party cookies as a security measure to protect against fraud and abuse and to help to identify irregularities in behaviour, these may include cookies written with Adobe Flash technology. Adobe utilise their own cookies, which are not manageable through your browser settings but are used by the Flash Player for similar purposes, such as storing preferences or tracking users. Flash Cookies work in a different way to web browser cookies; rather than having individual cookies for particular jobs, a website is restricted to storing all data in one cookie. You can control how much data, if any, may be stored in that cookie but you cannot choose what type of information is allowed to be stored. You can manage which websites can store information in Flash cookies on your device via the website storage settings panel on the Adobe website.
Web Beacons
We also include web beacons in our emails to track the success of our marketing campaigns. This means that if you open an email from us we can see which of the pages of our website you have visited. Our web beacons do not store additional information on your device but, by communicating with our cookies on your device, they can tell us whether our emails are opened and verify any clicks through to links or advertisements.
If you object to the use of web beacons please see our section on How can users manage or opt out of cookies?
For more detailed information about the third party cookies on our sites, please click here.
How can users manage or opt out of cookies?
Some people find the idea of a website storing information on their device a little intrusive, in particular when the information is stored and used by a third party. For example, you may object to being served advertising which is targeted to your interests based on your browsing history.
If you would prefer to opt out of cookies it is possible to control cookies by following the steps below, however you should be aware that if you choose to block all cookies, our site will not function as intended and you will not be able to use or access many of the services we provide.
Rather than blocking all cookies, you can choose to only block third-party cookies which will still allow our website to function as intended.
Cookies, including those which have already been set, can be deleted from your hard drive. You can also change the preferences/settings in your web browser to control cookies. Some internet browsers have a ‘Do Not Track or ‘DNT’ setting; this sends a signal to websites asking them not to track your browsing. The following links may be helpful:
Cookie setting in Safari – desktop and mobile devices
Cookie setting in Internet Explorer
In some cases, you can choose to accept cookies from the primary site, but block them from third parties. In others, you can block cookies from specific advertisers, or clear out all cookies. Deleting or blocking cookies may reduce the functionality of the site.
You can find out more about managing cookies by visiting All About Cookies or by going to the help menu within your internet browser.
Please be aware that these are third party websites and Look After My Bills does not accept any liability for the instructions given on these sites.
Opting out of Analytical Performance Cookies:
If you would like to opt-out of Analytics cookies, please do so by clicking on the relevant links in the cookies table here.
Opting out of Targeting and Behavioural Advertising Cookies:
If you would like to disable third party cookies generated by advertisers or providers of targeted advertising services, you can turn them off by going to the third party’s website. If you would like to opt-out of Targeting and Behavioural advertising cookies, please do so by clicking on the relevant links in the cookies table here.
You can also find out how to decline targeting and behavioural advertising cookies by visiting:
http://optout.networkadvertising.org/?c=1#!/
http://www.youronlinechoices.eu
Web Beacons
You can normally render web beacons and other tracking technologies ineffective by switching off cookies in your browser. There are also browser add-ons and extensions that specifically block web beacons. If you object to web beacons in emails, we recommend that you follow the instructions for deleting existing cookies and disabling future cookies above. We will still know how many of our emails are opened and we will automatically receive your IP address, a unique identifier of your device or other access device; but we will not identify you as an individual.
Contact details and where to find further information
If you have any questions or concerns about our use of cookies or our cookie notice please contact us:
By email: dpo@lookaftermybills.com
By post: This is The Big Deal Limited, 4 Callaghan Square, Cardiff, Wales, CF10 5BT
For more information about cookies please visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org/
General information about data protection may be found at:
Information Commissioner’s website: https://ico.org.uk/
Direct Marketing Association: https://dma.org.uk/