Cookie Policy
“We” or “us” means BuildingPoint SA (Pty) Ltd – 2014/266010/07, OPTRON Group (Pty) Ltd – 2012/176408/07 collectively and individually.
What is a cookie?
A cookie is a small piece of data that a website asks your browser to store on your computer, mobile device and/or other web-enabled device whenever you visit a website. The cookie, once stored, allows the website to “remember” your device and your actions or preferences over time.
A cookie is downloaded by your internet browser the first time your visit a website. The next time you visit that website with the same device, the cookie and the information in it are sent back to either the website visited (i.e. first-party cookie) or another website (i.e. third-party cookie). By that a website can detect that it has already been opened using your browser, and in some cases it will then vary the content it shows and/or limit or enable functionality.
Most internet browsers support cookies. You can however set your browser to decline certain types of cookies or specific cookies. Further, you can delete cookies at any time.
Where we use cookies to collect personal information, this will be carried out in accordance with our Privacy Statement. Please ensure that you read our Privacy Statement to understand our practices regarding your personal information and how we will treat such personal information.
Why do we use cookies?
We use cookies for a lot of different functions, including to learn how you interact with our content and to generally improve your experience when visiting our website. For example, some cookies remember your language and other preferences so that you do not have to repeatedly make these choices and/or input these details when you visit our website.
Cookies can also help to ensure that the advertisements you see online are more relevant to you and your interests. In addition, cookies can help us to analyze the use of our website and online content and they can also facilitate/track the interaction on our website and online content with social media (e.g. links to social media sites, like buttons, etc.).
We may employ the learnings of your behaviour on our website to serve you with targeted advertisement on third-party website(s) in an effort to “re-market” our products and services to you.
First Party and/or Third Party cookies?
We use both first-party and third-party cookies on our website. First-party cookies are cookies issued from our optron.co.za domain that are generally used to identify language and location preferences or render basic site functionality.
Third-party cookies belong to and are managed by other parties, such as our business partners or service providers. These cookies may be required to render certain forms, such as the submission of a job application, or to allow for some advertising outside of the Shell website.
For some of the functions within our websites we use third party suppliers, for example, when you visit a page with videos embedded from or links to third party content providers (for example YouTube, Twitter, etc.). These videos or links (and any other content from third party suppliers) may contain third party cookies, and we encourage you to consult the privacy policies of these third party suppliers on their websites for information regarding their use of cookies.
Session Cookies and/or Persistent Cookies?
We use both session cookies and persistent cookies on our website. Session cookies are temporary cookies that are used to remember you during the course of your visit to our website, and they expire when you close your web browser.
Persistent cookies are used to remember your preferences within our website and remain on your desktop, mobile device and/or other web-enabled device even after you close your browser or restart your device. We use these cookies to analyse user behaviour to establish visit patterns so that we can improve our website functionality for you and others who visit our website. These cookies also allow us to serve you with targeted advertising and measure the effectiveness of our site functionality and advertising.
Categories of cookies?
We use the following categories of cookies on our website:
- Strictly necessary cookies These cookies are essential in order to enable you to move around our website and use its features (such as accessing secure areas of our website). Without these cookies certain functionalities of our website cannot be offered. Strictly necessary cookies are always active and will be placed without your consent.
- Analytics cookies These cookies allow us to employ data analytics so we can measure and improve the performance of our website and provide more relevant content to you. The information collected is aggregated, and therefore made anonymous. These cookies do not collect information that would allow you to be identified, and only serve the purpose of evaluating and enhancing your experience of our website. These cookies enable us to improve the way our website works, for example by ensuring that you are finding what you are looking for easily.
- Performance cookies These cookies collect information about your visit and use of our website, for instance which pages you visit the most often and if you get error messages from web pages. They are generally third-party cookies from vendors we work with or who work on our behalf. These cookies don’t collect information that identifies you. All information these cookies collect is anonymous and is only used to improve how our website works. Third party vendors may have access to this data and may use it to improve their overall services and offerings.
- Functionality cookies These cookies allow our website to store information you have already previously entered (such as your username) and remember options you have already previously selected (such as your language), in order to offer you improved personalised functions and remember your preferences. These cookies cannot track your browsing activity on other websites. They don’t gather any information about you that could be used for advertising or remembering where you’ve been on the internet outside our website.
- Targeting, advertising and social media cookies These cookies are used to: (i) deliver advertisements more relevant to you and your interests; (ii) limit the number of times you see an advertisement; (iii) help measure the effectiveness of the advertising campaign; (iv) re-target to our website/information and (v) understand your behaviour after you view an advertisement. They are usually placed on behalf of advertising networks with our website operator’s permission. They remember that you have visited a website and quite often they will be linked to website functionality provided by the other organization. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit.
How are cookies used for advertising purposes?
We may use information collected from our cookies to identify user behaviour and to serve content and offers based on your profile to the extent legally permissible. In other cases, we can associate cookie information with you. For example:
- If we send you a targeted email which includes web beacons, cookies or similar technologies we will know whether you open, read, or delete the message;
- When you click a link in a marketing e-mail you receive from us, we may also use a cookie to log what pages you view and what content you download from our website, even if you are not registered at or signed into our website.
Cookies and ad technology such as web beacons, pixels, and anonymous ad network tags help us serve relevant ads to you more effectively. They also help us collect aggregated audit data, research, and performance reporting for advertisers. Pixels enable us to understand and improve the delivery of ads to you, and know when certain ads have been shown to you. Since your web browser may request advertisements and web beacons directly from ad network servers, these networks can view, edit, or set their own cookies, just as if you had requested a web page from their site.
Although we do not use cookies to create a profile of your browsing behaviour on third-party sites, we do use aggregate data from third parties to show you relevant, interest-based advertising. We do not provide any personal information that we collect to advertisers. You can opt out of off-site and third-party-informed advertising by adjusting your cookie settings. Opting out will not remove advertising from the pages you visit, but, instead, opting out will result in the ads you see not being matched to your interests. This implies that the ad(s) you see will not be matched to your interests by those specific cookies.
Combining and analysing personal data
We may combine data from publicly available sources, and from our different e-mail, website, and personal interactions with you (this includes information collected when you sign-up or log on to our website or connect to our website using your social media credentials). We combine this data to better assess your experience with us and to perform the other activities described throughout our Privacy Statement.
Do we use any other tracking technologies similar to cookies?
We may use web beacons (including conversion pixels) or other technologies for similar purposes as above and we may include these on our website, in marketing e-mail messages or our newsletter, affiliated websites, to determine whether messages have been opened and links clicked on. Web beacons do not place information on your device, but they may work in conjunction with cookies to monitor website activity. The information provided herein about cookies also applies to web beacons and similar technologies. Conversion pixels are small codes located on our website which are triggered when someone visits a page resulting in an increase in the conversion count.
How can you manage your cookies?
You can visit www.allaboutcookies.org for details on how to delete or reject cookies and for further information on cookies generally. By using our website without deleting or rejecting some or all cookies, you agree that we can place those cookies that you have not deleted or rejected on your device.
Changes to this cookie policy
We may update this cookie policy at any time by publishing an updated version here. To ensure that you know when we make changes to this cookie policy, we will amend the revision date. The new modified or amended cookie policy will apply from the revision date. Therefore, we encourage you to review this cookie policy periodically to be informed about how we are using your information.
VERSION | DATE | DESCRIPTION | APPROVED BY |
2.0 | 14.04.2024 | Second Draft |
P Chetty |