We collect information about you via our website, through the use of cookies
We collect information about you when you use our website or view content provided by Eurofins. Part of this information is automatically collected through cookies and stored in server logs. We also use various technologies to determine location, including IP address that may, for example, provide Eurofins with information on what country or city you are in.

4.1.1 What are cookies?
A cookie is a small text file that a website saves on your computer or mobile device when you visit the website. It enables the website to remember your actions and preferences (such as login, language, font size and other display preferences) over a period of time, so you do not have to keep re-entering them whenever you come back to the site or browse from one page to another.

There are various sorts of cookies. Some cookies, as narrated below, extend the functionalities of our website and enhance your experience using our website, others are critical to its proper functioning and the website may not work without them.

4.1.2 What cookies does Eurofins’ website use, for which purposes and how long are they kept for?
Strictly necessary cookies: These cookies are essential to move around a website and use its features, such as accessing secure areas. Without these cookies, services website users ask for, like shopping baskets or e-billing, cannot be provided. Strictly necessary cookies are used to store a unique identifier to manage and identify the user as unique to other users currently viewing the website, in order to provide a consistent and accurate service to the user.

These cookies enable services the website’s users have specifically asked for.

These cookies are first-party cookies, which are set by the web server of the visited page and share the same domain. They are persistent and erased after one year.

Performance cookies: These cookies collect information about users such as page load speeds, internet connection speeds, browser type, device type, screen size, etc. for the purpose of assessing the performance of a website and allowing its improvement. Once collected, the information is directly anonymised. They are set by a third party service called Google Analytics. It collects information in an aggregated (i.e., anonymous) form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors come from and the pages they visited. These cookies are divided into session cookies, which are erased when the user closes the browser and persistent cookies, which remains on the user's computer/device for a pre-defined period of time (usually two years).

Functionality cookies: These are cookies that automatically remember choices that users have previously made in order to improve their experience next time they visit the website (where users select their preferred language or remember settings such as whether or not they have logged in already for example). These cookies are also used to prevent a user being offered a service that had previously been offered and rejected. These cookies are persistent ones and generally kept for one year. Some are set after the appearance of a feature popup window to prevent it from appearing again on a specific page whereas others determine whether a banner appears centred at the bottom on all pages across the website, intended to advertise the presence of feature web pages for Eurofins 30th Anniversary. Absence of this latter cookie displays the banner.

These cookies are first-party cookies, which are set by the web server of the visited page and share the same domain.

Targeting or advertising cookies: These cookies track users’ browsing activities on websites and collect information about user’s browsing habits. These cookies are used to deliver advertisements more relevant to the website users and their interests; to limit the number of times users see an advertisement and to help measure the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. These cookies contain a unique key that is able to distinguish individual users’ browsing habits or store code that can be translated into a set of browsing habits or preferences using information stored elsewhere. They remember that a user has visited a website and this information is shared with other organisations such as advertisers. Quite often targeting or advertising cookies will be linked to site functionality provided by the other organisations. The data contained in these cookies is generally set and controlled by these third party organisations.

All cookies will only be only used for the purposes stated above and to provide better services to all our website visitors so we can present our website, services and products to you in the most appropriate manner.

Please note that on this website, Google Analytics code is supplemented by “anonymizeIP” to ensure an anonymized collection of IP addresses (so called IP-masking).

Youtube
We are interested in providing you with a wide range of multimedia information. That's why we embed videos from YouTube (YouTube LLC, 901 Cherry Ave. San Bruno, CA 94066 USA). The legal basis for this is Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f) GDPR.
The integration works in the enhanced privacy mode, also referred to as no-cookie solution, which means that only when the video is actually played YouTube will place cookies and pixel tags for the personalization of advertising and search results.
When you play the YouTube video, the following data is transmitted to Google as a YouTube operator:

the IP address,
the specific address of the page visited,
the transferred ID of the browser
system date and time of the call,
existing cookies that can be used to uniquely identify your browser.

This data processing is under the exclusive responsibility of Google as the operator of YouTube. We neither have knowledge nor can we influence which data (and how they) are processed there. More information can be found here. Please note that Google may receive further information via cookies already stored on your computer. We neither have knowledge nor can we influence which data (and how they) are processed there. The privacy policy of YouTube can be found here.

Social Media Buttons
Articles on our website can be shared quickly and easily on social networks like Facebook, Twitter or Google+. For this we have created with our social buttons the opportunity to use these services - but still protect your privacy. Usually, these social plugins cause every visitor to a page to be immediately tracked by these services with their IP address and their other activities in the Internet being logged. This happens even if the user does not click on any of the buttons.
To prevent this, Eurofins uses the Shariff method. Our social buttons do not establish direct contact with the social network until you actively click on the share button. If you are already logged in to a social network, this will be done on Facebook and Google+ without opening an extra window. On Twitter, a pop-up window appears where you can edit the tweets’ text.

Users can post the content of our websites on social networks without enabling them to create complete surf profiles. Eurofins uses the Shariff method to protect your privacy interests to the extent possible under the current state of technology.
The Shariff method is already being used by many websites to protect their users. The starting point was an initiative of Heise.de, where you can find more information about the current state of the discussion.
Initiative of heise.de for a 2-click method called "Shariff" (content-related information and technical details)

Links to the privacy settings:

https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/
https://twitter.com/privacy?lang=de
https://policies.google.com/?hl=de

4.1.3 How to control cookies?
You can control and/or delete cookies as you wish. You can delete all cookies that are already on your computer and you can set most browsers to prevent them from being placed. If you do this, however, you may have to manually adjust some preferences every time you visit a site and some services and functionalities may not work.

For more general information about cookies and how to disable them through your browser, visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org/.

You can easily accept or reject each of the cookies on this site by adjusting your preferences on the relevant link provided on each of Eurofins webpages titled “Cookies Preferences”.

4.2 We collect information about you via web beacons and parameter tracking

We also use software similar to cookies known as web beacons. A web beacon is one of a number of techniques used to track who is reading a web page or email, when, and from which computer. It can also be used to redirect the user client to a third party web service for tracking purposes.
It is not possible to refuse the use of web beacons. However, because they are used in conjunction with cookies, you can effectively disable them by setting your browser to restrict or block cookies.

We also use ETag, which is an HTTP protocol header field mainly used to validate web caches and allow more efficient browsing. It has also been used for cookie-like purposes.
We also use Scripts (such e.g. JavaScript code) and components (such as browsers plugins like Adobe Flash) used to generate Web pages and to automate computer processes. You can disable the Scripts, such as JavaScript, through your browser (see your browser's settings).

4.3 We collect information about you via third parties
We use Google Analytics’ 3rd-party audience data such as age, gender and interests to work with companies that collect information about your online activities to provide advertising targeted to suit your interests and preferences. For example, you may see certain ads on this website or other website because we contract with Google and other similar companies to target our ads based on information we or they have collected, including information that was collected through automated means (such as cookies and web beacons). These companies also use automated technologies to collect information when you click on our ads, which helps track and manage the effectiveness of our marketing efforts.

You may opt out of the automated collection of information by third-party ad networks for the purpose of delivering advertisements tailored to your interests, by visiting the consumer opt-out page for the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioural Advertising at http://www.aboutads.info/choices/ and edit or opt-out your Google Display Network ads’ preferences at http://www.google.com/ads/preferences/. Because those opt-out and preference control pages are specific to the individual browser used to visit it, and because that page is not operated by Eurofins, we are unable to perform the opt-outs on your behalf.