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Direct Mobiles Cookies Policy
We use cookies to remember your preferences, to customise your experience on our website and to help measure the effectiveness of our marketing and the performance of our services. We also use cookies to allow us and our partners to show you relevant advertising.
In this article
- What are cookies?
- Cookie Preference
- What do cookies do?
- How do we use cookies?
- Essential cookies
- Non-essential cookies
- What happens if you choose to opt out?
- If you don’t want to use cookies at all
What are cookies?
A cookie is a small text file that is sent from the website you visit to your computer’s web browser, where it is stored for a set period of time. Cookies are not software programmes and they cannot harm or damage your computer. They contain plain text which looks like a long string of numbers, letters and symbols but which can be used by computers to store and read little bits of information.
Cookie Preference
Some cookies are essential for our website to work properly and to maintain our service.
Some are not required for us to provide our service but help us to offer you a better experience both on our website and after you leave.
What do cookies do?
Cookies provide a number of functions to help make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of websites about how you use their website.
Cookies typically contain a unique identification value that lets a website know whether you have visited it before. If you have, then cookies can pre-populate certain fields on the website and remember your product preferences for future visits, to save you time and effort. Some cookies are shared between websites, and these may be used to show you relevant advertising or to understand what products and services you might find of interest.
How do we use cookies?
We use cookies to remember your preferences, to customise your experience on our website and to help measure the effectiveness of our marketing and the performance of our services. We also use cookies to allow us and our partners to show you relevant advertising.
Most information collected by cookies on our website is anonymous. This means they do not store personal information, such as your name, address or bank details. They hold a unique reference of numbers and letters that we can use to remember preferences, fix problems with the site and to ensure it is working at optimum performance.
If you use our broadband availability checker, one of our cookies holds the last postcode you entered, and if you complete one of our email forms, the same cookie will hold the last email address you entered. This is so you don’t have to subsequently re-enter them as you move around our website or if you revisit it. We encrypt this data for added privacy and security.
Please read our full privacy policy To find out more about the personal information that we process and how to contact us to find out what personal information of yours we hold; what we use it for; how you can correct any inaccuracies; and how you can request that we stop using it.
The table below lists all the main cookies we use and explains what they do and how long they last before they’re deleted (a “session” cookie is deleted when you close your browser). Where we use another company to provide the cookie, the table also provides a link to more information. Some cookies can be used for a number of different purposes – this is why you will see the same cookie name in different places in the table.
Some cookies are essential for our website to work properly and to maintain our service. Some are not required for us to provide our service, but help us offer you a better experience both on our website and after you leave.
Essential cookies
We enable these cookies for all visitors to our website. They make sure it functions correctly (for example, allowing you to do a search for offers where you live and to place an order should you choose). These cookies also make sure that its performance is optimised (for example, helping you find our website in search engines, making sure it can handle lots of visitors at busy times and remembering choices you have made, to save you time and effort).
| Name | Duration | Purpose | More information |
| Broadbandchoices Browser Session AWSELB, starting .AspNetCore.Antiforgery | <1 day | These cookies allow our website to respond to your actions such as when you enter your postcode to run a broadband comparison search. | |
| Broadbandchoices User Preferences cookie_policy, usercontext, _dtl_analytics_filter, _dtl_cookie_consent | <1 day | These cookies allow us to remember your preferences and some features of your journey, for example, saving you the trouble of typing in your postcode every time you search for a better deal. They also tell us if you have closed pop-ups on the site (so we don’t bother you with them again). These cookies also store a some of deals you have viewed so we can email them to you if you ask us to. These cookies also tell us if you have seen our cookie policy and whether you have opted out of receiving non-essential cookies. | |
| Broadbandchoices _dtl_ref1, _dtl_ref2, _dtl_ref3, _dtl_tsid | 1 day 1 day 1 day Session | These cookies show us how you found our website and which website you came from, or something else about your journey to our website. This helps us to understand which of our online marketing channels is most effective. These cookies also allow us to reward some external websites for directing you to us. | |
| Broadbandchoices _dtl_uid algoStoreSessionId | 2 years 2 years | These cookies allow us to see if you have made separate visits to our website at different times. This allows us to offer you a more customised experience by remembering your previous preferences. | |
| Response Tap _adiCookieCheck > adiLP asiS adiV adiVi initial_entry | Session 30 minutes 30 minutes 1 minute 30 minutes 7 days | These cookies enable us to track the progress of a telephone order you have placed. | You can find detailed information about Response Tap’s privacy policy here . |
| Google Analytics _ga, _gat_europe_unique_urchin, _gid _gali | 2 years 1 minute 24 hours 1 year | These cookies allow us to use a unique anonymous ID that Google has created. We use this cookie to generate statistical data on how you use our website so we can see when you purchase a product from one of our suppliers. If you ask us to email you, we use this to recognise if you return to our website to help us offer you a better service. | You can find detailed information about Google’s privacy policies and how to manage the use of these cookie settings here. |
| Google Analytics (Demographics and Interest Reporting) _gat | 1 minute | This cookie allows us to use anonymous data that Google has collected. This includes demographic information about our visitors (gender, age group and interests). We use this information to better understand our users to help improve our website content, the user experience and refine our marketing. | You can find detailed information about Google’s demographics and interest reporting and how to manage the information they collect here . |
| Optimizely optimizelyBuckets, optimizelyDomainTestCookie, optimizelyEndUserId, optimizelyPendingLogEvents, optimizelyRedirect, optimizelyReferrer, optimizelySegments | 6 months 6 months 6 months 15 seconds 15 seconds 15 seconds 6 months | These cookies allow us to test different versions of website pages to different users at the same time and to track how users navigate around our website. We use this information to test new features and make the website easier to use. | You can find out more about how Optimizely works, and how to turn off their cookies here . |
Google Adwords Bing Ads (Microsoft) | 90 days 390 days | We use these cookies to show us how you found our website and which website you came from, or something else about your journey to our website. This helps us to understand which of our online marketing channels is most effective. | You can find out more about Google’s use of this cookie and how to control its settings here. You can find out more about Microsoft’s use of this cookie and how to control its settings here . |
| New Relic JSESSIONID | Session | This cookie tells us how many people are using our website. We use this information to make sure the website works quickly which gives you a better experience when you use it. | You can find out more about this cookie here. |
| DT Tracker / GetCake (affsecure.com) sid, trk, c(number) | Session | These cookies track when you click on a supplier’s offer on our website and we direct you through to that chosen supplier’s website, so you can complete your order. The cookies subsequently allow us to see when your order has resulted in a sale with a supplier. | You can find out more about these cookies here. |
Non-essential cookies
These cookies are used to help us improve our website (for example, by seeing how users react to new designs) or to show you relevant advertising from our company or other companies when you visit other websites. We enable these cookies for all visitors to our website but you can turn off these cookies by choosing opt out in the cookie banner. You can also turn off individual cookies by following the link in the More information column.
| Name | Cookie Duration | Purpose | More information |
| Lotame _cc_cc _cc_id _cc_aud _cc_domain _cc_dc | 270 days 270 days 270 days 270 days 270 days | These cookies are used by our partner Lotame so that they can show you advertising based on other websites you have visited, so that the ads may be more relevant and interesting to you. This is called “interest-based advertising.” | You can read Lotame’s privacy policy here and you can opt out from their interest-based advertising here . |
| DoubleClick (BT) id, __gads IDE | 548 days | BT uses this cookie from DoubleClick (part of Google) to analyse their customer buying patterns after you leave our website. | You can find out how to turn this cookie off here. |
| Hotjar _hjIncludedInSample, _hjMinimizedPolls, _hjUserId, _hjDonePolls, _hjDoneTestersWidgets, _hjMinimizedTestersWidgets | 1 year 1 year 1 year 1 year 1 year 1 year | These cookies track how you use different pages on our website. They also allow us to run (optional) short questionnaires on the website to get your direct feedback on what you think about our service. We use this information to test new features and make the website easier to use. | You can read Hotjar’s privacy policy here and find more about their cookies here . |
AdWords DoubleClick Google | 2 years | We use these cookies to show you personalised ads when you visit other websites (for example, to remind you to return to our website to complete an order you have started). In addition to the essential use, in the table above, this Google Analytics cookie is used with the other two cookies in this section to show you advertising based on other websites you have visited, and information Google may have collected from their services (such as demographics). If you are signed in to your Google account this allows us to identify the type of device through which you accessed our website (smartphone, PC, etc). This cookie also allows us to see whether you have clicked on any of the ads we show. | You can control the personalisation setting that Google uses for advertising here . |
What happens if you choose to opt out?
When you make this preference, we disable the non-essential cookies and we disable the personalised advertising features of Google’s services, so that we only retain the essential, website performance features it provides.
If you don’t want to use cookies at all
You can stop your computer accepting cookies by changing the settings of your web browser. If you do this, some parts of our website won’t work at all and others will not work correctly, or it may limit some of the functionality. To get the best experience from our website, we recommend that you keep cookies enabled.
You can use the links below to find out how to manage cookies settings on popular web browsers. In addition, if you have used our website with non-essential cookies turned on, and you subsequently wish to turn them off, you may need to delete cookies already placed on your computer by following the instructions specific to your browser below:
If cookies are already on your computer, you can delete them. For more general information on cookies and how to delete them, use the link below: http://www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies
You can see all the companies that are using advertising personalisation cookies in your browser, and individually turn them off, by using the link below: http://www.youronlinechoices.com/uk/your-ad-choices
