Cookie Policy of The Trusted Advisor Toolkit™

This Application uses Cookies to save the User's session and to carry out other activities that are strictly necessary for the operation of this Application, for example in relation to the distribution of traffic.

'Session cookies' keep you logged-in to this application and are the only cookies that this application actively maintains. These Session Cookies are shared between our associated applications to provide a 'single sign on' (SSO) experience, where applicable.

ONLY registered site members are affected by Session cookies and SSO, since 3rd Parties (your clients) never use these applications directly.

Session cookies are randomized & encrypted, they expire automatically (usually within 30 mins of inactivity) and are compliant with the new GDPR-EU recommendation known as 'pseudonymization'.

[In lay terms: pseudonymization means that Session cookies can not be attributed to a specific person without the use of identification information which is, itself, kept separately and securely from other personal data -- such that It is 'reasonably impossible' that any personal data could be attributed to a specific person without legitimate authorization . ~Ed.]
See the full Privacy & Data Policy for specifics about data collection as well as our System Security statement.

This Application may use Cookies to save browsing preferences and to optimize the User's browsing experience. Among these Cookies are, for example, those used for the setting of language and currency preferences or for the management of first party statistics employed directly by the Owner of the site.

This type of service allows User Data to be utilized for advertising communication purposes displayed in the form of banners and other advertisements on this Application, possibly based on User interests.
This does not mean that all Personal Data are used for this purpose. Information and conditions of use are shown below.

Some of the services listed below may use Cookies to identify Users or they may use the behavioral retargeting technique, i.e. displaying ads tailored to the User’s interests and behavior, including those detected outside this Application. For more information, please check the privacy policies of the relevant services.

The services contained in this section enable the Owner to monitor and analyze web traffic and can be used to keep track of User behavior.

Google Analytics (Google Inc.)

Google Analytics is a web analysis service provided by Google Inc. (“Google”). Google utilizes the Data collected to track and examine the use of this Application, to prepare reports on its activities and share them with other Google services.
Google may use the Data collected to contextualize and personalize the ads of its own advertising network.

Personal Data collected: Cookies and Usage Data.

Place of processing: US – Privacy Policy – Opt Out.

This type of service allows this Application to display advertisements for third party products or services. Ads can be displayed either as advertising links or as banners using various kinds of graphics.
Clicks on the icon or banner posted on the Application are tracked by the third-party services listed below, and are shared with this Application.
For details of which data are collected, please refer to the privacy policy of each service.

Content commenting services allow Users to make and publish their comments on the contents of this Application.
Depending on the settings chosen by the Owner, Users may also leave anonymous comments. If there is an email address among the Personal Data provided by the User, it may be used to send notifications of comments on the same content. Users are responsible for the content of their own comments.
If a content commenting service provided by third parties is installed, it may still collect web traffic data for the pages where the comment service is installed, even when Users do not use the content commenting service.

Comment system managed directly (This Application)

This Application has its own internal content comment system which is not currently in use.

Personal Data collected: Cookies, email address, first name, last name, Usage Data, username and website.

Heat Mapping services are used to display the areas of a page where Users most frequently move the mouse or click. This shows where the points of interest are. These services make it possible to monitor and analyze web traffic and keep track of User behavior.
Some of these services may record sessions and make them available for later visual playback.

This type of service allows interaction with social networks or other external platforms directly from the pages of this Application.
The interaction and information obtained through this Application are always subject to the User’s privacy settings for each social network.
This type of service might still collect traffic data for the pages where the service is installed, even when Users do not use it.

This type of service allows Users to interact with third party online survey platforms directly from the pages of this Application.
If one of these services is installed, it may collect browsing and Usage Data in the pages where it is installed, even if the Users do not actively use the service.

This type of service allows this Application and its partners to inform, optimize and serve advertising based on past use of this Application by the User.
This activity is performed by tracking Usage Data and by using Cookies, information that is transferred to the partners that manage the remarketing and behavioral targeting activity.
In addition to any opt out offered by any of the services below, the User may opt out of a third-party service's use of cookies by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative opt-out page.

Definitions and legal references