1. What are “cookies”?

“Cookies” are small text files that are stored by the browser (for example, Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome) on your computer or mobile cellphone. They allow websites to store things like user preferences. You can think of cookies as providing a “memory” for the website so that it can recognise you when you come back and respond appropriately.

2. Anonymous analytics cookies

Every time someone visits our Drumstars, software provided by another organisation generates an “anonymous analytics cookie.” These cookies can tell us whether or not you have visited us before.

Your browser will tell us if you have these cookies and, if you do not, we generate new ones. This allows us to track how many individual users we have, and how often they visit Drumstars.

Unless you are signed in to the Drumstars, we cannot use these cookies to identify individuals. We use them to gather statistics, for example, the number of visits to an article or page. If you are logged in, we will also know the details you gave to us for this, such as your username and email address.

3. Geotargetting cookies

These cookies are used by software which tries to work out what country you are in from the information supplied by your browser when you click on a web page. This cookie is completely anonymous, and we only use it to help target our content – such as whether you read our articles or browse our pages – and advertising.

4. Registration cookies

When you register with Drumstars, we generate cookies that let us know whether you are signed in or not.

Our servers use these cookies to work out which account you are signed in with, and if you are allowed access to a particular service. It also allows us to associate any comments you publish with your username.

If you have not selected “keep me signed in,” your cookies get deleted when you either close your browser or shut down your computer.

While you are signed into either of the websites, we combine information from your registration cookies with analytics cookies, which we could use to identify which pages you have seen on Drumstars.

5. Other third-party cookies

On some pages of Drumstars, other organisations may also set their own anonymous cookies. They do this to track the success of their application, or to customise the application for you. Because of how cookies work, Drumstars cannot access these cookies, nor can the other organisation access the data in cookies we use on Drumstars.

For example, when you share an article using a social media sharing button (for example, Facebook) on Drumstars, the social network that has created the button will record that you have done this.

6. How do you turn cookies off

It is usually possible to stop your browser accepting cookies, or to stop it accepting cookies from a particular website. However, we cannot tell if you are signed in without using cookies, so you would not be able to publish comments.

All modern browsers allow you to change the cookie settings. You can usually find these settings in the “options,” “settings” or “preferences” menu of your browser. To understand these settings, the following links may be helpful, or you can use the “Help” option in your browser for more details:

If you are primarily concerned about third party cookies generated by advertisers, you can turn these off by going to the Your Online Choices website.

You can also visit the trade body representing these advertising platforms for more information: Network Advertising Initiative.

They have provided a website where you can control all third-party online advertising. Please note that there are many more networks listed on this website than those that we use at Drumstars.

7. Useful links

If you would like to find out more about cookies and their use on the Internet, you may find the following links useful:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau has provided the following website to give information specifically about privacy issues around Internet advertising.

For further legal information about privacy issues, you may find this hyperlink useful: