COOKIE POLICY

On May 8th 2014, the Italian Data Protection Authority issued a regulation to identify the simplified modes for the privacy policy statement and the acquirement of the consent for the use of cookies; such document has been converted into a State law, the Cookie Law, on June 3rd 2014 (see also Data Protection Authority, no to targeting cookies without consent).

By this law, the website data controller/ webmaster must acquire the informed consent in advance from the users for the installation of the cookies used for purposes differing from the merely technical ones.

WHAT ARE COOKIE

The cookies are text files, containing minimum information sent to the browser and saved on the computer, phone or other device of the user, every time he/she visits a website. At each connection, the cookies resend the information to the relating site.

The cookies may be permanent (persistent cookies), if they remain on the computer, until the user does not delete them, or temporary (session cookies) if they are disabled upon closure of the browser. The cookies can also be first-party cookies, if set by the visited website, or third-party cookies, if inserted by a website differing from the one visited.

For the purposes of the law provision, the Data Protection Authority has identified two types of cookies: “technical cookies” and “targeting cookies”.

Technical Cookies
The technical cookies are the ones used with the sole purpose of “transmitting a communication on an electronic communications network or, as strictly necessary, for sending to the provider of a service of a company the information explicitly requested by the subscriber or user to deliver that service” (cfr. art. 122, paragraph 1, of the Code for the Protection of Data).
They are not used for other purposes and are normally installed directly by the website data controller or webmaster. They can be divided in browsing or session cookies, which assure normal browsing and use of the website (allowing, for example, to perform a purchase or authentication to access reserved areas); any analytics cookies, similar to technical cookies, where used directly by the webmaster of the site to collect information, in aggregate form, on the number of users and on how they visit the same website; functional cookies, which allow the users to browse according to a series of selected criteria (e.g. the language, the products selected for the purchase) in order to improve the service delivered to the same. No prior consent of the users is required for the installation of such cookies.

Targeting Cookies
The targeting cookies aim at creating profiles relating to the user and are used to send advertising messages, consistent with the preferences showed by the same, while browsing on the web. Due to the special invasiveness that such devices may have within the privacy of the users, the European and Italian regulation provides that the user must be adequately informed on the use of such and, therefore, express their own proper consent. Reference to the above can be found in art. 122 of the Code for the Protection of Data, where it provides that “the archiving of information in the terminal equipment of a contracting party or user or access to information already archived is only allowed on condition that the contracting party or user has expressed consent after being informed with simplified methods as provided by article 13 Code for the Protection of Data, paragraph 3“.

WHY DO WE USE COOKIE

We use cookies to improve the functionality of our website, to allow the user to easily move among the pages, to remind his/her preferences and to assure the user always an optimal browsing experience.

COOKIE USED AND THEIR SCOPE

The cookies used in our website can be classified as follows:

Essential cookies
These cookies are crucial to allow the user to move within the site and to use the required services, such as, for example, the access to protected sites areas.
The essential cookies are first-party cookies and may be permanent or temporary. Without these cookies, the user cannot access the services requested and our website would not function correctly.

Performance cookies
The performance cookies collect information on the use of a website by users, such as, for example, which are the pages visited more frequently. These cookies do not save identification data of the individual visitors, but only aggregated data in an anonymous manner.
We use these cookies for statistic purposes, to understand how our website is used.
These cookies can be permanent or temporary, first- or third-party. These cookies substantially collect anonymous information on the visited pages.

Functionality cookies
These cookies allow the website to remember the choices of the visitors (for example, the user name, the language or the access country) and to provide for more customised functions. Functionality cookies may also be used to provide for services requested by the user, such as access to a video or the entering of a comment to a blog. The information used by these cookies is anonymous and it is not possible to trace the browsing activity of the users on other websites.
We use these cookies to:

remember whether a particular service has already been provided to the user
improve the general experience in the website remembering the user’s preferences.

These cookies can also be permanent or temporary, first- or third-party. These cookies, substantially, remind the individual choices of the users to improve their browsing experience.

Google Analytics
Our website also includes some components conveyed by Google Analytics, a web traffic analysis service, provided by Google. They are third-party cookies, collected and managed anonymously to monitor and improve the performance of the host site (performance cookies).

Google Analytics uses the “cookies” to collect and anonymously analyse the information on the use behaviours of our website. Such information is collected by Google Analytics, which processes it with the purpose of issuing reports for our operators, on the activities on the same websites. This website does not use (and does not allow third parties to use) Google’s analysis tool to monitor and to collect personal identification information.

The Data Protection Authority specified that Google Analytics cookies may be considered similar to the technical cookies, only if used for the purpose of optimising the site directly by the data controller of the same website, who can collect information in an aggregate manner on the number of users and on how they visit the website. On this conditions, the same rules apply for the analytics cookies, as for privacy statement and consent, provided for the technical cookies.

Therefore, let’s point out that on our website the Google Analytics management components have been adequately modified so that the IP addresses of the users remain anonymous.

For further information, please refer to the link shown below: Data use mode by Google

The user may selectively disable the action of Google Analytics by installing the opt-out component, provided by Google, on his/her own browser. To disable the action of Google Analytics, please refer to the link here below: Browser add-on to disable Google Analytics

Other third-party cookies
By visiting a website, it is possible to receive cookies both from the visited site (“owners”) and from the websites managed by other organisations (“third parties”). An example is represented by the presence of the “social plugins” for Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, etc. They are parts of the visited page, generated directly by the above-mentioned websites and integrated in the page of the hosting site. The most common use of the social plugins aims at sharing the contents on the social networks.

The presence of these plugins entails the transmission of the cookies from and to all the websites, managed by third parties. The management of the information collected by “third parties” is ruled by the relating privacy statements, to which you must refer. To assure a greater transparency and convenience, here below are the web addresses of the various privacy statements and of the cookies management mode.

Facebook privacy statement
Facebook (configuration): log in to your account > privacy section
Twitter privacy statement
Twitter (configuration)
Linkedin privacy statement
Linkedin (configuration)
Google+ privacy statement
Google+ (configuration)
Instagram privacy statement
Pinterest privacy statement

HOW TO MANAGE AND DISABLE THE COOKIES

The user can decide whether to accept or not the cookies, using the settings of his/her own browser.

Attention: total or partial disabling of the technical cookies can compromise the use of the website functionalities reserved to registered users. On the contrary, the usability of the public contents is possible also in case of complete disabling of the cookies.

The disabling of the “third-party” cookies does not affect in any way the browsing capacity.

The setting can be set specifically for the various websites and web applications.

Each browser features different procedures for the management of the settings. The user can obtain specific instructions by the below links.

The disabling of the third party cookies is, moreover, possible by the modes made available directly by the third-party company, in control for such processing, as shown in the links reported in the paragraph “Cookies used and their purposes > Other third-party cookies”

In case of services, issued by third parties, the Users can, moreover, exercise their right to oppose to the tracking, by getting information via the third-party privacy policy, by the opt-out link, if expressly provided or directly contacting the same.

To receive information on the cookies saved on one’s terminal and to disable them individually, please refer to the link: YourOnlineChoices.com

To remove the cookies from the browser of one’s own smartphone/tablet, it could be necessary to refer to the device’s user manual.

Using the website without refusing the cookies by the shown procedures, the users agree that we use such technologies for the collection and processing of information.