Phew! It’s been a hectic few weeks at Jack the Ripper central, or to be precise, here at the office.
Some of you may be aware that as of 26th May 2012 all UK websites must obtain consent from visitors for the use of cookies and other tracking technologies. Now, when we refer to cookies, we’re not talking about those delicious biscuity type things that you can enjoy with a cup of tea or coffee! We’re talking byte size chunks of computer code. (d’you see what we did there!)
If you’re not familiar with this new law you can read about the cookie law here.
Virtually all websites use Cookies for a variety of purposes, most of them, it must be said, to help improve and enhance the visitor experience. Thus cookies can be used for the following purposes:-
1) To analyse visitor behaviour (known as ‘analytics’).
2) To personalise pages and remember visitor preferences.
3) To manage shopping carts in online stores.
4) To track people across websites and deliver targeted advertising.
As part of our commitment to offering as much information as possible on our tour we are the first of the Jack the Ripper Tour companies to comply with the new cookie law. It must be said that the use of cookies on our site is very limited indeed. We don’t, for example, personalise pages, nor do we remember visitor preferences. We don’t do this for two reasons.
Firstly, we put as much information as possible on our website so that visitors can find all the information they want, and more, simply by looking at our home page.
Secondly, when it comes to the web, we’re absolute dinosaurs and wouldn’t have the foggiest idea how to personalise a page and remember visitor preferences.
In addition, since we don’t use any advertising on our website we have now reason to track people across websites in order to deliver targeted advertising.
But, since we do sell books and DVDs and we ask people to book onto our tours so that we can limit the number of participants, we do use cookies in this respect.
Also, in common with 99.9% of websites, we do use analytics so that we can understand what people are looking for on our website, thus enabling us to give you, the client, the information you want at the click of a mouse.
So, as per usual, ours is the first Jack the Ripper Walk to comply with the law and implement the necessary cookie opt out that UK law now requires.
Where is it?
Well at the top of the home page you may have noticed a bar that alerts visitors to our site that we use cookies and giving you the option of leaving the site. But, in addition, we have also prepared a full article on cookies so that you can see for yourself what they are all about and how they are used. You can read our cookie article here.
So, in a nut shell, that’s what we’ve been up to for the last few weeks. We have been ensuring that our website complies 100% with European law in order that our clients can enjoy the reassurance that they are dealing with a law-abiding and reputable company.
In the meantime we are working on a way of offering visitors to our Jack the Ripper Tour website the other variety of tasty cookies and a cup of tea.
Imagine, just as you land on the home page, a chocolate chip cookie and a cup of tea magically materialises so that you can enjoy them as you peruse the huge amount of information we provide you with before you join us for a Jack the Ripper Walk. As yet, well, we’re not quite there!