Cookie Policy

General information on cookies

Cookies are small text files that are sent by the websites visited by users to their terminal equipment (typically to users’ browser), where they are stored and then re-transmitted to the same websites every time these are visited via the same terminal equipment. In addition, every website can send the so-called ‘third party’ cookies, i.e. cookies generated by websites other than the website being visited by the user (via elements included therein such as banners, images, maps, sound files, specific links to web pages of different domains).

Depending on their duration, cookies can be session cookies (i.e. temporary cookies which are automatically cancelled by the terminal equipment at the end of the browsing session, closing the browser) and persistent cookies (i.e. cookies that remain stored on the terminal equipment until their expiry or cancellation by the user).

Cookies serve different purposes. First of all, they are used to carry out the transmission of a communication or to provide the service requested by the user; specifically, they enable the operation and optimization of the website, the performance of IT authentication and the prevention of unlawful use, the monitoring of sessions; they also improve the browsing experience of users, e.g. by keeping active the connection to reserved areas during their navigation across the pages of a website without having to re-enter their User-Id and password, storing specific information on users themselves (including their preferences, type of browser and computer used).

These cookies are “technical” (the user’s prior consent is not necessary), because some of the aforesaid operations could not be carried out or would be more complex and/or less secure without them.

Instead, if cookies are used for further purposes, typically to analyse user behaviour and to send targeted ads messages (so-called “profiling” cookies) or even only to obtain, via third party services, aggregate information on the number of users and on how they visit the website (so-called (“analytics cookies”) the user’s prior consent is required. In fact, before sending these cookies to the terminal equipment, in accordance with the privacy law in force (Privacy Code and the General Resolution on cookies adopted by the Italian Data Protection Authority on May 8, 2014), on accessing the home page (or any other landing page) of a website, the user must be shown immediately a banner, providing the short information notice on the use of cookies and the request of the user’s consent, which the user can give by continuing browsing, by selecting any item on the page underneath the banner, or by closing the banner itself.

In any event, cookies can be read or modified only by the website that generated them; they cannot be used to retrieve data from the user’s terminal and cannot spread viruses. Some functions of cookies can be performed also by other technology; therefore, in this web privacy policy, “cookies” mean both cookies and any similar technology.