Cookies - how and why we use them.

"I don't want to accept a cookie!"

A cry from a lot of people who are paranoid about cookies, and not without reason in some cases. But, the simple fact is that the way a computer (that sends out web pages) is allowed to send your computer a web page is a way that means you are totally anonymous. That's great for privacy ... but unfortunately prevents Loanspage from remembering who you are from one page to the next. That's a problem ... if you "logged in" telling us who you are, without a cookie we will "forget" who you are the moment you load another web page! Crumbs!! Here's the technical bit - web pages are delivered using a non-persistent stateless protocol. Ouch !

So, when your web browser opens Loanspage, we will "remember" who you are by sending your browser a long number. Here's one:-

2007111609351698 

The number is actually the date, time and a random number on the end. There's nothing in this cookie that identifies you personally, but it does allow us to go, for example. "Ah, that person who loaded our front page 20 seconds ago has just loaded our application page ... we can now remember what loan deal the potential customer chose so he/she doesn't have to tell us again".

Why we use cookies.

Storing a number in a cookie allows us to see where people came from (eg from paid advertisements, or from search engines). Knowing this information, for example, could allow us to budget better for future advertising. A cookie allows our pages to seem more intelligent (imagine if after you had chosen a loan deal we "forgot" what that deal was when you moved to another of our web pages ... like applying for the loan deal.).

If you don't want to use cookies, you don't have to. Unfortunately, Loanspage won't be able to treat you as a unique customer, won't be able to remember you, and our wonderful AJAX and Web 2.0 software will get confused and will stop working for you (imagine if you forget everything within 5 seconds of being told something).

If you are worried about cookies - and you disable them in your browser or privacy protecting software - then not being able to use Loanspage's excellent service is the sacrifice that will be made.