Cookie Policy

1 Introduction

Welcome to Alfred Gera & Sons Limited’s IP Address and Cookie Policy (the “Policy”).

We, Alfred Gera & Sons Limited (C 120) of 10, Triq il-Masgar, Qormi, Malta (“we”; “us”; “our”) collect aggregate information about the users of our website: http://www.alfredgera.com (the “Site”) through the use of ‘cookies’ and Internet Protocol Addresses  (“IP Addresses”) and our related practices.

The practices that we apply for the generation of such aggregate information are described in this Policy.

Please read the following carefully to understand how and why the Site uses your IP Address and cookies! If you do not accept or agree to the practices described in this Policy, you must exit the Site immediately! Continued use will be deemed to amount to your full acceptance and consent.

2 IP Address

2.1 What happens when you visit the Site

Every time you connect to the internet or, if you use an always-on connection, such as broadband or ADSL, when you boot up or restart your computer, you are automatically assigned a unique identifying number known as an IP Address. This IP Address, which contains information regarding the location of your computer on the internet (your country of origin) and the name of your internet service provider (“ISP”), is automatically logged by the Site.

2.2 What is an IP Address?

When you first started your internet session (i.e. your computer connected to the internet), your computer was automatically assigned a unique number (normally in the region of 9 or 10 decimal numbers), known as an IP Address. This is your computer’s unique address on the internet. Without an IP Address, websites would not be able to deliver their content to you given that they would not be able find your computer on the internet. Since each time you disconnect and reconnect to the internet a new IP Address is automatically assigned to your computer, IP Addresses are not inherently capable of identifying you as an individual (at least, by themselves and not combined with other identifiers). An IP Address does, however, contain information regarding the location of your computer on the internet (your country) and the name of your ISP, and which when combined with other available information may lead to your identification. For these reasons, EU data protection law treats IP Addresses as personal data with the resulting protections.

2.3 How do we collect your IP Address

Each time you visit a page on the Site, your computer sends out a message asking for the requested content to be delivered. This message sent by your computer also encloses your IP Address as a form of “return address”, so that the Site may find your computer in order to send it that requested content. Our web-server automatically logs all these messages.

2.4 What do we do with your IP Address?

When we log your IP Address, the data collected is grouped up with the other logged IP Addresses in order to provide us with the statistics on the geographic location of visitors to the Site, how long they stay on the Site, which are the most viewed pages and for other statistical reasons that may be relevant to us.

We gather your IP address automatically and store it in log files. These files also contain information relating to your browser type, ISP, operating system, date/time stamp, clickstream data and the files viewed on Site. Collecting this type of information allows us to generate aggregate information for the purposes of developing the Site, including in terms of overall user trends and activities online (such as the number of unique visitors, pages accessed and viewed most frequently or the search terms entered). It also allows us to administer the Site, diagnose any potential server problems, analyse visitor trends and statistics, and generally helps us to provide you with a better internet experience.

IP Addresses are not stored for longer than necessary for the above stated purposes.

3 Cookies

3.1 Information about our use of Cookies

The Site uses cookies to distinguish you from other users. They allow us to analyse trends and administer the Site, to help us to provide you with a good experience when you browse the Site, and to develop and improve it at the same time.

A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer if you agree. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer’s hard drive. A cookie enables the website to remember users that have already visited. Without a cookie, every time you open a new web page, the server where that page is stored will treat you like a completely new visitor. Cookies allow us to remember your custom preferences such as your language preference and allow you to complete tasks without having to re-enter your information when browsing.

We use the following cookies:

• Strictly necessary cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of the Site. Namely, by way of illustration, they include cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of the Site.
• Analytical and Performance cookies. They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and see how visitors move around the Site when using it. This helps us to improve the way and manner in which the Site works, such as by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking in a seamless and straightforward manner.

You can find more information about the individual cookies we use and the purposes which we use them in the table below:

Please note that third parties (including advertising networks and providers of external services like web traffic analysis services) may also use cookies, over which we have no control. These cookies are likely to be analytical and performance cookies or targeting cookies.

You do not have to accept cookies to use our Site.

You can control the use of cookies at the individual browser level, and can even block or reject all or some cookies by activating the relevant setting on your browser. If you do block or reject cookies (including essential cookies), you may still be able to access and use the Site, but your ability to use some of its features and areas, together with the services that you connect to through the Site, may be limited or may simply not function properly.

Many browsers allow you to browse privately, whereby cookies are automatically erased after you visit a site. The following is a list of the most common browsers and the way in which you can activate private browsing:

• Internet Explorer 8 and later versions: In Private
• Safari 2 and later versions: Private Navigation/Browsing
• Firefox 3.5 and later versions: Private Navigation/Browsing
• Google Chrome 10 and later versions: Incognito

Further information on cookies can be found on various sites such as allaboutcookies.com

• Social Media Features and Widgets

The Site includes social media features such as [insert details]. These features may collect your IP address, which pages you are visiting on the Site, and may set a cookie to enable this feature to function properly.

Any personal information that you provide via such social media applications may be collected and used by other members of that social media application and such interactions are governed by the privacy policies of the companies that provide and/or operate the application. We do not have control over, or responsibility for, those companies or their use of your information.

4 Other Information Stored

4.1 Web server Logs

For security and troubleshooting purposes our web server stores logs of activity on the website. The information stored includes: date, time, IP, page visited, result, amount of data sent and browser used.

4.2 Google Analytics

So as to improve the quality, functionality and overall user experience of the Website, we are using Google Analytics Advertising Features.

If you would like to opt-out of Google Analytics for display advertising, you may do so by using the Ads Preference Manager. In addition, there is also a Google Analytics Opt-Out browser add-on that you can download at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

5 Updates to this Policy

We will occasionally update this Policy to reflect changes in our practices and services. When we post changes to this Policy, we will revise the “Last Updated” date at the top of this Policy. We recommend that you check this page from time to time to inform yourself of any changes in this Policy or any of our other policies.

6 Contact Us

If you have any questions or comments about this Policy, or privacy matters generally, please contact us via email at info@alfredgera.com.