COOKIES POLICY

Last updated May 24, 2024

As described in our Privacy Policies, ESI GROUP is committed to respecting and protecting your privacy. In the spirit of transparency, this policy provides detailed information about how and when we use cookies and your choices about them.

What are cookies?

This website uses cookies. Cookies are small files containing certain information that are stored on your device when you visit a webpage. Cookies are served either by ESI GROUP or its affiliates (collectively “ESI”) – so-called “first party cookies” – or by third parties providing services to ESI; such cookies are referred to as “third party cookies”.

Cookies are necessary to provide certain functionalities on a website, e.g. to maintain a language choice made by a user. Moreover, cookies enable the respective issuer (ESI or a third party) to recognize that the website was previously called up by a certain end device, allowing the identification of returning visitors (or rather their end devices) and gathering information about their usage of the website and their presumed interests.

This information is used to improve the website and to deliver relevant advertisement for ESI products and services on the website as well as on third party sites.

What types of cookies does ESI use?

Cookies can be assigned to four categories, depending on their function and intended purpose:

  • strictly necessary cookies,
  • functionality cookies,
  • statistic cookies,
  • and marketing cookies.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

These cookies are essential in order to enable you to move around the website and use its features, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. Without these cookies, services requested through usage of our website cannot be properly provided.

Strictly necessary cookies do not require consent from the user under applicable law. You may configure your web browser to block strictly necessary cookies, but you might then not be able to use the website’s functionalities as intended.

To the extent that information processed in connection with strictly necessary cookies should qualify as personal data in a given case, the legal ground for that processing is ESI legitimate interest to operate the website.

Preferences Cookies (or functionality cookies)

These cookies allow the website to remember choices you make or information you enter (such as your username, language or the region you are in) and provide enhanced, more personal features. They are also used to enable requested functions such as playing videos.

To the extent that information processed in connection with functionality cookies should, in a given case, qualify as personal data, the legal ground for that processing is the user’s consent.

Statistics Cookies

These cookies collect information about how visitors use a website, for instance which pages visitors go to most often, and how visitors move around the site. They help us to better understand a user’s behavior on our webpage. This is necessary to improve the user friendliness of a website and therefore enhance the user’s experience.

Further information collected by statistics cookies may include e.g.: internet browser and operating system used, the domain name of the website which you previously visited, the number of visits, average duration of visit, and pages called up.

In general, the information collected by these cookies is aggregated and can normally not be linked to a specific natural person. However, in certain cases the collected information can be linked to you directly (provided you disclosed your identity to ESI, e.g., when creating an account or filing a request with us). To the extent that information processed in connection with statistic cookies can, in a given case, be directly linked to you or otherwise qualifies as personal data, the legal ground for that processing is your user consent.

Marketing Cookies

Marketing cookies (also referred to as targeting or advertising cookies) are used to deliver adverts on third party websites more relevant to you and your interests. They are also used to limit the number of times you see an advertisement as well as help measure the effectiveness of an advertising campaign.

Legal basis for the processing of personal data in connection with marketing cookies (if any) is the user’s consent.

Why does ESI use cookies?

By gathering and remembering information about your interactions with us online, these technologies allow us to provide you with a better web and marketing experience. Specifically, cookies enable ESI to do the following:

  • Customize our website to your needs, likes and dislikes.
  • Provide an automated login process as a convenience for previously registered customers, ensuring that you will be identified accurately and linked with your registration data.
  • Remember information you enter on our website, such as search terms, key words, names of products, or your contact information, making it easier for you to enter the information on subsequent visits.
  • Provide a better web experience by letting us monitor what is working on our website in different locations and what is not.
  • Know which emails have been opened by recipients and which links are clicked by recipients so that we may more accurately report on and improve our marketing communications to you.
  • Know how you have interacted with content on our website so that we can deliver enhanced interactions and more relevant information about products or services that might interest you.
  • Employ analytics tools to measure traffic and usage trends on our website and in response to marketing emails.
  • See how visitors move around our website.
  • Deliver advertisements for ESI products and services that are relevant to you and your interests.

What about third parties?

ESI allows trusted third-party partners like Google and Adobe to employ cookies or other tracking technologies on our website. These third parties may use these technologies to recognize you across devices, like your mobile phone, laptop, and tablet.

For example, we work with third parties like Google to manage ESI advertising. In order to display relevant ads to you, these third parties may use cookies to collect information about your visits to our website. These third parties then use this information about your interests to provide you targeted ESI advertising on sites other than our own.

In some circumstances, ESI may share certain personal information that we collect with our trusted third-party partners. For example, we may share information with our advertising partners to identify potentially relevant audiences for targeted ESI advertising. We only share information as necessary for the specific business relationship. These partners are required to keep this information confidential and can only use it to provide services at ESI’s direction.

We also use third parties like Google and Adobe to improve our website and/or detect errors. For this purpose, third parties anonymously store and analyze various kinds of data, including the pages and links you have visited on our website, the time of the visit, and the type of browser you used.

We may receive reports from our third-party partners based on the information obtained through cookies, on an individual and aggregated basis.

You can find more information about the types of third-party cookies on ESI’s website by visiting our cookie consent manager (more details provided below).

What types of choices do I have about cookies on ESI’s website?

Cookies can be removed explicitly using functionality built into most web browsers. You may also set up your web browser to notify you of cookie placement requests, to ask for permission to accept them, or to decline cookies completely. However, some features of the website may not function properly if you do not accept cookies. Please review your browser’s settings and instructions for information about how to manage your cookies.

In addition, you may choose what types of cookies ESI’s website uses by using our cookie consent manager.

You can access the cookie management center by clicking on the cookies icon in the bottom left corner.

In this control panel, you can manage your consent, have details of third parties cookies classified by category (as shown above).

ESI is jointly responsible for any personal data collected by cookies as described in this Cookie Notice and has entered into an agreement with its affiliates setting out their respective data protection responsibilities. A summary of the content of that agreement is made available upon request.

Point of contact

In case of any request in connection with this Cookie Notice, please contact the Data Privacy Organization at dataprotection [at] esi-group.com