COOKIE/PRIVACY POLICY
Last updated: 26 April 2020
If you wish to amend any of the personal information that we hold about you, or update your marketing preferences, you can do so at any time through your Account and Email Newsletter pages.
If you have any queries about how we use your personal information, please contact our Data Protection Officer at DPO@mergersight.com
We reserve the right to make changes to this Cookie and Privacy Policy at any time and for any reason. We will alert you about any changes by updating the “Last Updated” date of this Policy. Any changes or modifications will be effective immediately upon posting the updated Policy on the Site, and you waive the right to receive specific notice of each such change or modification.
Information we collect
This section details the information we may collect about you. We explain why, and how, we use it in later sections.
Account information
If you decide to create an account or enquire about one of our email newsletter services, we will ask you to provide us with some specific information, for example:
Basic personal details – such as name, title and date of birth;
Personal contact details – such as home address, delivery address, home phone number, mobile phone number, and email address;
Work/ details – such as job title, department, company name, company address, work email address and office phone number;
Log in details – such as username (email address) and password;
Payment details – such as your bank account and payment card information.
Additional information
On occasion, we will ask you to voluntarily provide additional information, for example:
Your opinion of our website and it’s services;
Your preferences, including email newsletters;
Your career details and CV if you use our careers page to apply for vacancies;
Cookie Policy
This Cookie Policy is part of and is incorporated into our Privacy Policy. By using the Site, you agree to be bound by this Cookie Policy and our Privacy Policy. It relates to the information we obtain through cookies and similar tools.
We use cookies (and similar technologies) and analytics tools across our Sites to collect information about you. This information can be used to improve the performance of the site, make advertising more relevant and enhance your user experience.
Use of Cookies
A “cookie” is a string of information which assigns you a unique identifier that we store on your computer. Your browser then provides that unique identifier to use each time you submit a query to the Site. We use cookies on the Site to, among other things, keep track of services you have used, record registration information, record your user preferences, keep you logged into the Site, facilitate purchase procedures, and track the pages you visit.
Types of Cookies
The following types of cookies may be used when you visit the Site:
Advertising Cookies -
Advertising cookies are placed on your computer by advertisers and ad servers in order to display advertisements that are most likely to be of interest to you. These cookies allow advertisers and ad servers to gather information about your visits to the Site and other websites, alternate the ads sent to a specific computer, and track how often an ad has been viewed and by whom. These cookies are linked to a computer and do not gather any personal information about you.
Analytics Cookies - Analytics cookies monitor how users reached the Site, and how they interact with and move around once on the Site.. We record user movements, including page scrolling, clicks and text entered. (It does not record payment details.) These cookies let us know what features on the Site are working the best and what features on the Site can be improved and for aggregated and statistical reporting purposes.
Our Cookies - Our cookies are “first-party cookies”, and can be either permanent or temporary. These are necessary cookies, without which the Site won't work properly or be able to provide certain features and functionalities. Some of these may be manually disabled in your browser, but may affect the functionality of the Site. For example, our cookies find what type of device you are using to show you the best version of the site.
Personalization Cookies - Personalization cookies are used to recognize repeat visitors to the Site. We use these cookies to record your browsing history, the pages you have visited, and your settings and preferences each time you visit the Site.
Security Cookies - Security cookies help identify and prevent security risks. We use these cookies to authenticate users and protect user data from unauthorized parties.
Site Management Cookies - Site management cookies are used to maintain your identity or session on the Site so that you are not logged off unexpectedly, and any information you enter is retained from page to page. These cookies cannot be turned off individually, but you can disable all cookies in your browser.
Control of Cookies
Most browsers are set to accept cookies by default. However, you can remove or reject cookies in your browser’s settings. Please be aware that such action could affect the availability and functionality of the Site.
Other Tracking Technologies
In addition to cookies, we may use web beacons, pixel tags, and other tracking technologies on the Site to help customize the Site and improve your experience. A “web beacon” or “pixel tag” is tiny object or image embedded in a web page or email. They are used to track the number of users who have visited particular pages and viewed emails, and acquire other statistical data. They collect only a limited set of data, such as a cookie number, time and date of page or email view, and a description of the page or email on which they reside. Web beacons and pixel tags cannot be declined. However, you can limit their use by controlling the cookies that interact with them.
Lawful basis for processing
We only process personal information where we have a lawful basis for doing so, such as the following:
User consent – This is where you have given us explicit permission to process personal information for a given purpose. We would ask for your consent if we wanted to use your personal information for any other purpose. You have the right to withdraw this consent at any time. You can manage your preferences within your account or by contacting us.
Legitimate business purposes – This is where we have a legitimate interest, as a business, to process personal information. We take due care to balance our interests against your right to privacy.
Contractual necessity – This is where we have to process personal information to meet our contractual obligations.
Legal obligation – This is where we have to process personal information in order to comply with the law.
How we use your personal information
We collect personal information for the following main reasons:
To provide our service – We require some of your basic personal information so our services work as you would expect.
To improve and maintain performance – In order to provide you with the best possible user experience and value, we need to make sure that our products and services work as they should. Using personal information helps us understand how our readers experience our Sites and services, so we can make improvements. This includes contacting customers with market research surveys.
To bill our customers – We, along with our authorised payments processors, securely process your payment information to take payments, give refunds and to detect and prevent fraudulent activity. We will also update your payment information in the event that a payment is unsuccessful. You can manage your payment information at any time by contacting us.
To monitor compliance with our policies and terms – We monitor for breaches of our terms and conditions and copyright policies. We also monitor activity on our Sites to detect and prevent invalid or fraudulent traffic.
To personalise our products and services – We improve your experience of our products and services by personalising parts of our Sites and apps with the information you give us and what we learn about you. This includes showing you articles you may be interested in and recommending emails you may wish to sign up to.
For the purpose of advertising – We rely on advertising revenue in part to support our website. We need to process your information to understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve to you and others, and to deliver relevant personalised advertising. We use the information you give us and the information we collect about you to serve you with the most appropriate advertisements. You can manage your advertising settings for the Sites that carry out this activity in your account. If you do decide to turn off personalised advertisements or advertisements tailored to you, you will still see the same number of advertisements but they may be less relevant to you. You may continue to see advertisements that are targeted to you based on other non-personal information.
Recruitment – If you apply for a role via our site, we will process your information in order to facilitate the application process.
To build directories – We may process personal information to create databases and directories. These directories provide key business insights and profiles to those that have licensed access.
Who we share your personal information with
We disclose personal information to facilitate the running of our business or to provide specific services you have requested. Commonly, we will disclose information to:
Service providers – We engage with service providers who help to support our business and improve our products. These service providers include, for example, organisers and sponsors of our events; organisations that host our Sites or databases; and providers of online surveys. These data processors can only use your personal information under our instruction and are not used for any third-party benefit.
Advertisers – We, and our advertising partners, use cookies to collect personal information and serve you with advertisements that we believe are relevant to you and your interests. There is more specific information about our advertising partners and data sharing in our Cookie Policy above.
Social media providers – Information will be shared with social media platforms where you log in to our Sites via a social media account or use components on our Sites provided by social media platforms. We also share the information of our subscribers with social media partners for the following reasons:
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To prevent existing subscribers from being targeted with subscription offerings on social media platforms;
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To create lookalike audiences for the purposes of targeted advertising on social media platforms
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To encourage users to get the most out of their subscription.
Other users – Our Sites are publicly accessible and anyone around the world who accesses our Sites will be able to see anything you post, such as comments on an article.
Legal processes and successors in title – We may also disclose your information to comply with applicable laws, court orders or other valid legal processes. We also share aggregated, non-identifiable information with third parties. Before sharing this information, we ensure that it cannot identify you as an individual.
How long we retain your personal information
We retain the majority of your personal information for as long as your account is active and therefore open; this allows you to continue accessing our content, products and services.
If you become inactive and are not a subscriber, we will delete elements of the information associated with your account. You can contact us at any time to delete/remove your account.
Contact Us
If you have questions or comments about this Cookie/Privacy Policy, you can contact us.