Web site access

There is not a lot of point in imposing terms and conditions on access to our web site and it seem silly the people that do. Everything on our web site is already subject to the Copyright Designs and Patents Act (in the UK) and other legislation in other countries subject to the Berne Convention. We reserve all rights we can under that. We don't need to impose some contract terms on you to allow you to access the web site especially as they are on the web site and so you have to access it before seeing or agreeing to them.

However, there are things we can make clear and can legally apply after the first time you access the web site (as you are aware of them or could have made yourself aware of them). These also apply if we have specifically notified you of these restrictions.

Interception

We do not give any consent, and explicitly withdraw any implied consent, to any traffic to or from this web site being intercepted, monitored or changed. (other than the normal operation of caches in accordance with RFCs).

Specifically, this means that if you operate some systems as listed below then you are liable for criminal action and civil action for damages and costs.

• Recording accesses to our web site for the purposes of marketing to your customers (e.g. Phorm).
• Changing anything in the web site in transit, such as inserting your own adverts or changing our links or adverts.
• Redirecting access to our web site (either at DNS or IP level) to another web site, even if you have agreement of your customer, as you do not have our agreement.

Note: BT plc have been formally advised of this.

Cookies

Many of our web sites make use of an http cookie to track a session. This is essential for any systems that need a log-in, such as the accounts and management pages. It is also essential for tracking an order on our ordering system. We minimise use of cookies to that which is essential for the operation of the web site, and no more.

You can, of course, attempt to access our web sites with cookies disabled, or (more commonly) just third party cookies disabled, if you wish. Our ordering, accounts and management pages will not work if cookies are not enabled, but our main web pages will generally work with no problems.

However, the legislation on this matter does not just apply to cookies. It applies to any information. This includes the documents and images your browser stores in a cache, and the meta data that is strored such as last modification date. It applies to your browser history. Indeed, it applies to everything your browser stores. Some of this data is not strictly necessary for providing you with a service, but simply makes it more efficient. Most of the data stored is done so with no option on your browser to stop it being stored, and no means for us to stop it being stored.

As an example, when you access any page from any link on our web site, or indeed any web site linking to our web site, your browser will send a referrer. This is the URL of the page that linked to us. This is used by us in logs on the web site so that we can see how people found the web site. This is not strictly necessary for the web site, but you have no way to turn this off in your browser, and we have not asked your consent for the storage and sending of this data. If the legislation was actually taken seriously that means we are already in breach of that legislation, and so is every other web site in the UK.

Continued use of any web site hosted or operated by Andrews & Arnold Ltd is conditional on:-

• That you accept and understand and agree that neither the web server, nor its operator, or any third party, actually stores anything on your computer (terminal equipment) and that such storage as may happen is entirely done by software on your computer which you control (i.e. your browser) and as such this legislation does not apply.
• That if by some further stupidity of the legal system the sending of information by a web server is deemed to be storage, then you accept that use of your browser to request that information from the web server is your positive consent to the information being sent back and hence stored.
• That if by some reason even that not seen as consent, then just by continuing to make use of any of our web sites you are giving consent for us to send back such information which is then stored.
• That you accept that any third party references from our web pages by means of links, or images or javascript, or css or any other means whether specifically clicked on by you or not, are outside our control, and that if they send you cookies or any other information you accept that it is not us sending it or us storing such information on your computer.

Having said that, we have no intention of using cookies or any other meta data in any way that we think customers would not like. Specifically any data is sent and used for the normal operation of web pages and your browser, simply collection of statistics on web site usage, and in the specific cases it is used for the on-line ordering and control pages where necessary.

You have the option to refuse information being stored on your computer when you access web pages - that option is to not visit web pages!. Yes, this is a stupid law.