O2 Cookie Policy

Cookies – what are they?

A "cookie" is a piece of information, like a tag, that's stored on your computer, tablet or phone when you visit a website. It can help identify your device – like your PC or mobile phone – whenever you visit that website.

They are used by most major websites including O2. To make the best use of our website, on whichever device you use, you'll need to make sure your web browser is set to accept cookies.

What are cookies used for?

We use cookies and some other data stored on your device to:

• give you a better online experience
• allow you to set personal preferences
• protect your security
• measure and improve our service
• work with partners and measure marketing

Find out more about the benefits of the cookies O2 uses

So what information is kept by the cookie?

A cookie will typically hold

• the name of the website that it has come from
• how long the cookie will stay on your computer or phone
• a value – usually a randomly generated unique number

How long do cookies stay on my computer?

Session cookies – these only last until you close your browser. They are not stored on your hard drive. They are usually used to track the pages that you visit so that information can be customised for you for that visit.

Persistent cookies – these are stored on your hard drive until you delete them or they reach their expiry date. These may, for example, be used to remember your preferences when you use the site.

How do cookies affect my privacy?

You can visit our website without revealing any personal information.

We protect your personal information very carefully. The security and safety of your personal information is very important to us.

We may ask you for personal information so you can buy something from our shop, for security reasons or so you can use our services.

Get full details of how we collect information, how we use it, how we keep it and how we disclose it in our Privacy Policy.

Find out how to manage cookies.

How O2 uses cookies

Cookies are used for a variety of things that help improve your online experience. If you're shopping in the O2 shop and have put something in your basket a cookie will make sure that the item stays in your basket when you move to a different page and then on to the checkout.

Other ways we make our online service easier to use include using cookies that:

• make login faster by remembering your customer details
• make the page load quickly by sharing the workload across computers
• give you access to self-help information and our live chat
• make sure our pages are optimised for your browser or device by giving us technical information about the device or browser you are using

Personal preferences

Cookies can help give you content that matches your preferences. We might give you relevant offers because we know what other offers you liked. They also allow you to customise a page.

Safety and security

Some cookies help make sure your information is secure when using our services while keeping our forms and shopping site easy to use.

Improving our service

To make sure you don't see particular adverts or announcements too many times we use a cookie to limit their frequency.

We also use cookies to measure and analyse how visitors use the site. This helps us develop it and make it easier to use.

Third-party cookies

O2 works with a number of companies and websites that help make sure our adverts, promotions and marketing messages are displayed to people who might be interested. These companies and partners may use cookies to collect anonymous data such as how many people have viewed a particular page each day.

Find out more about third-party cookies.

What can I do to manage cookies stored on my computer or phone?

You can accept or refuse cookies. Accepting cookies is usually the best way to make sure you get the best from a website.

Most PCs automatically accept them but you can change your browser settings to restrict, block or delete cookies if you want. Each browser is different, so check the 'Help' menu of your particular browser (or your mobile phone's handset manual) to learn how to change your cookie preferences. Many browsers have universal privacy settings for you to choose from.

Help on how to set and customise your cookie settings for your browser

How to manage cookies in Internet Explorer
Cookie settings in most versions of Internet Explorer can be found by clicking the tools option and then the privacy tab.

How to manage cookies in Firefox
Cookie settings in Firefox are managed in the Options window's Privacy panel. See Options window - Privacy Panel for information on these settings.

How to manage cookies in Chrome
Click on the spanner icon on the toolbar, select settings, click the under the bonnet tab, click on content settings in the privacy section.

How to manage cookies in Opera
You can manage cookies in Opera if you Click on settings, then Preferences, then Advanced and finally Cookies

How to manage cookies in Safari
Choose Safari, then preferences and then click security. You should then be able to specify if and when Safari should accept cookies.

To manage cookies on your mobile phone please consult your manual or handbook.

Get more help about how cookies work with specific browsers.

What happens if I don't accept cookies?

If you decline cookies, some aspects of the O2 site may not work on your computer or mobile phone and you may not be able to access areas you want on the website. For this reason we recommend that you accept cookies.

What are Flash cookies and how are they different?

Some websites use Adobe Flash Player to deliver video content and other services. Local Shared Objects – or Flash Cookies as they are usually known – help provide features that let you start looking at a video from where you stopped previously or saving your preferences. They are stored on your computer in the same way as other cookies, but you can't manage them with your browser in the same way.

If you want to delete or disable Flash cookies you can find out how on the Adobe website. But if you disable these cookies it may affect the features available to you on Flash-based applications like some video.

What happens if I delete my cookies?

If you delete all your cookies you will have to update your preferences with us again and some aspects of our site may not work.

What happens if I change computers or mobile?

If you use a different device, computer profile or browser you will have to tell us your preferences again.

Find out more about third-party cookies on the O2 website

If you'd like to learn more about cookies in general and how to manage them, visit aboutcookies.org.

We can't be responsible for the content of external websites.

Why does O2 allow cookies from other companies on its website?

Some third party cookies help us to:

• collect statistics about how our website is used so we can improve our website
• make sure you can see offers that are relevant to you
• provide specific relevant content for your preferences and interests
• allow the use of the online chat service

We use some cookies to track where you have come from, for example if you were referred to us by another website by collecting anonymous data. This lets us reward some external websites for referring customers to us.

You'll sometimes see our advertising or special offers on other websites. Cookies provided by the other website or advertising network can tell us how effective this is. For example, if you click on one of our advertisements, the website owner might use a cookie to tell us that you came from their site.

Cookies by themselves can't be used to find out the identity of any user. The information is completely anonymous and doesn't contain any of your personal data. Unless you choose to tell them, the third party sites will never know who you are even if they assign your browser a cookie.

What happens with social networks?

If you choose to 'share' O2 content with friends through Facebook, Twitter or other social networks you might be sent cookies from these websites. We don't control the setting of these cookies, so please check those websites for more information about their cookies and how to manage them.

Other third party cookies

Finally, please be aware that advertisers and other third parties may use their own cookies tags when you click on an advertisement or link on our website. These third parties are responsible for setting out their own cookie and privacy policies.

If you'd like to learn more about cookies in general and how to manage them, visit aboutcookies.org.

You can find out more about cookies from advertisers in this advice from the Internet Advertising Bureau.

We can't be responsible for the content of external websites.

Cookies on O2 websites: in detail

We use cookies on both our main website at www.o2.co.uk and our online shop at shop.o2.co.uk. This page explains what each cookie does and why we use it.

These cookies are essential to making our online services work properly. If you do want to disable these cookies you can do this in your browser settings but you might not be able to use some of our online services.

Cookie name	What do we use it for?	Where do we use it?
		www.o2.co.uk	shop.o2.co.uk
__utma	We use this cookie to help us count how many people visit our websites. It’s usually set the first time you visit a site. If you delete it (for example by deleting all cookies in your browser settings) then a new one will be set the next time you visit.
__utmb	We use this cookie to count and measure “user sessions” – that is, individual visits to our site, which may include several different pages or areas of the site. If you don’t do anything for 30 minutes, this cookie expires and a new cookie is set when you begin using the site again.
__utmc	We don’t use this cookie any more: you can delete it if you want to but there’s no risk in leaving it set.
__utmz	This cookie records how people arrive at our site – for example, from an advertisement campaign or using a particular search engine. We use this information to measure how effective our online advertising is and to look for ways to improve navigation between our own pages.
alreadyVisitedOnce	This cookie tells us if you’ve visited our site before.
ASPSESSIONIDASBQCCRC	This cookie stores an ID number each time you visit our website.
C2	We use this cookie to identify your web browser – but not you – each time you visit one of our websites. If you use several browsers or several computers, each one will have a different version of this cookie.
CMAVID CoreID6 WT_FPC	These cookies give us more information about how people move around our websites. They tell us things like: which journeys through our site are most important which products and special offers are most popular whether new tools and features are making our site easier to use if there are any places where people are finding our site difficult to use We use this information to improve our online services.
cmTPSet	This cookie records whether our website knows which browser and type of device you’re using. This helps us to tailor our sites to work on a wider range of screen sizes, software and devices.
HumanClickKEY LivePersonID HumanClickSiteContainerID_53115291	We use these cookies to make our live chat help services work properly. The information they collect is anonymous and doesn’t include any personal information about who you are.
TMS TMP LGP	These cookies tell us how people found our website and where they came from. We use this information to pay some commercial partners who point people to our site.
userLocale	We use this cookie to tell us which country you’re in. This information comes from your browser and helps us to do things like displaying the correct time and giving prices in your local currency.

These cookies help us to understand how people use our websites so we can improve our online services but they are not essential to making our websites work properly

Cookie name	What do we use it for?	Where do we use it?
		www.O2.co.uk	shop.o2.co.uk
AA002 MUID	These cookies are set when someone visits our site from an advertisement. They help us to track how effective our online campaigns are.
ACID	This cookie records visits to our site from advertisements displayed on AOL pages.
GTC	We use this cookie to remember what you've looked at on our site and whether you're already a customer (we never store personal information in a cookie though). This helps us show you things you'll find useful – for example, if you're a pay monthly customer we'll make it easier to find help about your bill.
s_pers	This cookie collects information about how people use our websites. We use this anonymous data to help us improve our services.