Our Cookie Policy

It’s all in the detail

Our websites use cookies to collect information. This includes information about browsing and purchasing behaviour by people who access our websites. This includes information about pages viewed, products purchased and the customer journey around our websites. Detailed information is set out in our Cookie Policy.

Cookie Policy

WHICH WEBSITES DOES THIS POLICY RELATE TO?

This policy applies to all Marks and Spencer Plc ("M&S") owned and operated websites, both in the UK and in the international territories in which we operate. This includes M&S owned web pages which refer a user to M&S branded products and services which are provided by third party organisations.

WHAT ARE COOKIES?

Like most websites, M&S websites use cookies and other similar technologies which store or provide access to information stored in your devices including, web beacons, plug ins, APIs, and fingerprinting technologies which permit the identification and tracking of a device. For the purpose of this policy we use the term "cookies" to include any technology that stores or accesses information on a user’s device.

Cookies are small data files which are placed on your computer or other devices (such as smart ‘phones or ‘tablets’) as you browse M&S websites. They are used to ‘remember’ when your computer or device accesses our websites, or to identify you as an M&S customer when you visit other websites. They can be used for just the duration of your visit ("session cookies") or they can be used to measure how you interact with services and content over time ("persistent cookies").

CONSENT FOR USE OF COOKIES

In most cases cookies cannot be deployed without consent.When you first enter our websites, you will be shown a pop-up cookie notification banner. The banner informs the user that our site uses cookies and similar technologies. When you click ‘close’ on the banner, we deem you to have consented to non-essential cookies unless you have disabled them using your browser settings.

WHAT DO WE USE COOKIES FOR?

Essential cookies

1. We use essential cookies to deliver and maintain on-line services, including providing basic website functionality, remembering your basket content, facilitating transactions and payments, fraud prevention, and maintaining and securing our websites;and

2. At an aggregated level, we use cookies to measure activity and engagement of visitors to our sites, and to provide data and statistics on how our website and services are used.

Essential cookies used for these purposes are deployed automatically for all users as soon as they enter our websites. If you wish to use our sites you cannot opt out of these cookies as they are an essential and integral feature.

Non-essential cookies

With your consent, we’ll also use cookies to:

1. Improve the quality of our services and develop new ones

2. Enable special website features such as widgets or embedded media files for example. These website features are not essential to the operation of the website but are intended to enhance user experience. They also allow us to develop and test new website features.

3. Enable M&S to meet its contractual obligations to make payments to third parties when a product is purchased by someone who has visited our website from a site operated by those parties.

This includes cookies used to:-

Show personalised content based on your interests, preferences or location

These types of cookies allow us to improve the way our websites and mobile apps work so that we can personalise your experience and show you content which is most relevant to you.

For example, a product or service may only be available in a particular location and may be more relevant to you depending on where you are, or we might show you certain products or services that we believe are most relevant to you based on your previous browsing or purchasing behaviour.

Show personalised or generic adverts either on M&S or third-party websites

We also use cookies to help us deliver online advertising that we believe is most relevant to you on our websites and third-party websites, including on social media such as Facebook, Instagram or Google.

These types of cookies may collect information about your online attributes or behaviour, such as your device identifier and/or IP address, the website you arrived from and information about your browsing and purchase history or the content of your shopping basket.

To help us to deliver online advertising that is relevant to you, we may also combine data we collect through cookies in the browser of your desktop computer or other devices with other data that we have collected, for example your purchases online and in store.

Deliver and measure the effectiveness of adverts

Some cookies can tell us if you have seen a specific advert, and when you saw it. This information allows us to measure the effectiveness of our online advertising campaigns and control the number of times you are shown an advert.

We also use cookies to measure the effectiveness of our marketing communications, for example by telling us if you have opened a marketing email that we have sent.

WHAT IF YOU DON’T WANT NON-ESSENTIAL COOKIES TO BE USED?

You can continue to use our website and complete transactions without consenting to cookies, but if you do this some website functionality may be impaired.

Note - if you have already consented to cookies on our website, you can change your preferences by clearing cookies from your browser and re-entering our site. This will cause the pop-up banner to re-display and you can choose to use the site without consenting to cookies.

HOW TO DISABLE COOKIES VIA YOUR BROWSER SETTINGS?

You can also disable cookies by changing your website browser settings to reject cookies. How you can do this will depend on the browser you use. Further details on how to disable cookies for the most popular browsers are set out below: -

For Microsoft Internet Explorer:

1. Choose the menu "tools" then "Internet Options"
2. Click on the "privacy" tab
3. Select the setting the appropriate setting

For Google Chrome:

1. Choose Settings> Advanced
2. Under "Privacy and security," click "Content settings".
3. Click "Cookies"

For Safari:

1. Choose Preferences > Privacy
2. Click on "Remove all Website Data"

For Mozilla firefox:

1. Choose the menu "tools" then "Options"
2. Click on the icon "privacy"
3. Find the menu "cookie" and select the relevant options

For Opera 6.0 and further:

1. Choose the menu Files"> "Preferences"
2. Privacy

WHAT HAPPENS IF I DISABLE COOKIES?

This depends on which cookies you disable, but in general the website may not operate properly if cookies are switched off. If you only disable third party cookies, you will not be prevented from making purchases on our sites. If you disable all cookies, you will be unable to complete a purchase on our sites.

WHAT COOKIES DO WE USE?