Our Use of Cookies and Other Tracking Mechanisms
We and our service providers use cookies and other tracking mechanisms to track information about your use of our Site. We may combine this information with other personal information we collect from you (and our service providers may do so on our behalf).
Cookies. Cookies are alphanumeric identifiers that we transfer to your device’s hard drive through your web browser for record-keeping purposes. Some cookies allow us to make it easier for you to navigate our Site and services, while others are used to enable a faster log-in process or to allow us to track your activities at our Site.
Disabling Cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but if you prefer, you can edit your browser options to block them in the future. The Help portion of the toolbar on most browsers will tell you how to prevent your computer from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie, or how to disable cookies altogether. Visitors to our Site who disable cookies will be able to browse certain areas of the Site, but some features may not function.
Clear GIFs, pixel tags and other technologies. Clear GIFs are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in function to cookies. In contrast to cookies, which are stored on your computer’s hard drive, clear GIFs are embedded invisibly on web pages. We may use clear GIFs (a.k.a. web beacons, web bugs or pixel tags), in connection with our Site to, among other things, track the activities of Site visitors, help us manage content, and compile statistics about Site usage. We and our service providers also use clear GIFs in HTML emails to our customers to help us track email response rates, identify when our emails are viewed, and track whether our emails are forwarded.
Analytics. We use automated devices and applications, such as Google Analytics, to evaluate usage of our Site. We use these tools to help us improve the performance of our Site and our users’ experience on our Site. These entities may use cookies and other tracking technologies, such as web beacons or local storage objects (LSOs), to perform their services. To learn more about Google’s privacy practices, please review the Google Privacy Policy at https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/. You can also download the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on to prevent your data from being used by Google Analytics at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
Do-Not-Track. Currently, our systems do not recognize browser “do-not-track” requests. You may, however, disable certain tracking as discussed in this section (e.g., by disabling cookies); you also may opt-out of targeted advertising by following the instructions in the Ad Network section.