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Cookie Notice

Last updated:

1. Scope and applicable law

This Cookie Notice explains how Ricotti Sisters Limited ("we", "us", "Ricotti Sisters") uses cookies and similar technologies on the website onlinelanguagelessons.uk (the "Site"). It supplements our Privacy Policy.

This Notice is governed by the UK Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR), the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. Because a substantial part of our learners is resident in the European Union — in particular Italy — we also comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation 2016/679), the ePrivacy Directive 2002/58/EC, the Italian Codice in materia di protezione dei dati personali (D.lgs. 196/2003 as amended) and the Provvedimento del Garante per la protezione dei dati personali of 10 June 2021 on cookies and other tracking tools.

Where the requirements of these regimes differ, we apply the stricter standard.

2. What cookies are and how we use them

A cookie is a small text file that a website places on your device when you visit. Cookies let the Site remember your actions and preferences (such as login, language, or items in your cart) over time. Similar technologies — local storage, pixels, and session identifiers — work the same way; we refer to all of them as "cookies" in this Notice.

We use cookies to operate the Site, to remember your choices, to understand how the Site is used so we can improve it, to measure and personalise our advertising on Facebook and Instagram, and to enable third-party services we rely on (such as payments and video lessons). We never use cookies that require your consent without first obtaining it through our cookie banner.

3. The cookie categories on this Site

Strictly necessary cookies. Required for the Site to function. Without them, services you have explicitly requested (such as logging in, adding a course to your cart, or completing a payment) cannot be provided. These do not require your consent under PECR Regulation 6(4).

Performance and analytics cookies. Help us understand how visitors interact with the Site (pages visited, time on page, errors). We use these only with your consent.

Functional cookies. Remember choices you make — such as your preferred language — to give you a more personalised experience. We use these only with your consent unless you have explicitly requested the underlying feature.

Marketing cookies. Used to show you advertising relevant to you on Facebook and Instagram and to measure how our campaigns perform. We set them through the Meta Pixel of Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd, and only with your consent.

The non-essential cookies we set fall into two of these categories: "Performance and analytics" (Google Analytics 4, loaded through Google Tag Manager) and "Marketing" (the Meta Pixel). Our consent banner offers a single accept-or-reject choice that covers both. If you accepted our cookies before we added the Meta Pixel, the banner asks you again, because that earlier choice covered analytics only.

4. Cookies used on onlinelanguagelessons.uk

The list below describes the cookies currently in use. Where a cookie name includes an account-specific identifier, the production value is shown.

  • wordpress_logged_in_* — maintains your authenticated session after login. 1st-party. Strictly necessary. Session, or up to 14 days if "remember me" is selected.
  • wordpress_sec_* — secures the authenticated session in the account area. 1st-party. Strictly necessary. Session, or up to 14 days.
  • wp-settings-* and wp-settings-time-* — persist your interface preferences in account pages. 1st-party. Functional. 1 year.
  • woocommerce_cart_hash — indicates that your cart has contents and triggers cart UI updates. 1st-party. Strictly necessary. Session.
  • woocommerce_items_in_cart — counts the number of items in your cart. 1st-party. Strictly necessary. Session.
  • wp_woocommerce_session_* — holds a unique identifier linking your cart and checkout data to your session on our server. 1st-party. Strictly necessary. 48 hours.
  • __stripe_mid — Stripe fraud-prevention identifier set when our checkout iframe loads. 3rd-party (Stripe Payments Europe Ltd). Strictly necessary. 1 year.
  • __stripe_sid — Stripe session identifier used to link related payment events. 3rd-party (Stripe). Strictly necessary. 30 minutes.
  • _ga — Google Analytics 4 client identifier used to distinguish unique users. 3rd-party (Google Ireland Ltd). Performance / Analytics. 2 years.
  • _ga_L1GVX197HR — Google Analytics 4 session-state cookie tied to our specific GA4 property (measurement ID G-L1GVX197HR). 3rd-party (Google). Performance / Analytics. 2 years.
  • Google Tag Manager (container GTM-5XJKCFTR) — GTM loads downstream tags only after your consent. It does not itself set tracking cookies, but it may write a short-lived consent-state value to local storage. 3rd-party (Google). Strictly necessary (consent state) and Performance (downstream tags). Session to 2 years depending on the downstream tag.
  • - _fbp: identifies your browser to Meta, so that Meta can measure our advertising and show you our ads on Facebook and Instagram. Set by the Meta Pixel on our domain, and only after you accept. 1st-party, read by Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd. *Marketing.* 90 days.
  • Meta’s own cookies (set on facebook.com): when the Meta Pixel sends an event, your browser also sends any cookies Meta has set on its own domain, for example because you use Facebook or Instagram in the same browser. Meta sets and controls them and describes them in its [Cookies Policy](https://www.facebook.com/privacy/policies/cookies/). 3rd-party (Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd). *Marketing.* Duration set by Meta.
  • NEXT_LOCALE — remembers your preferred language (en / it). 1st-party. Strictly necessary (set in response to your explicit language choice). 1 year.
  • Amelia booking storage (local-storage key ameliaCustomerBookingState) — preserves your booking selections while you move between the steps of the private-lessons booking flow. 1st-party. Strictly necessary when you are in the booking flow. Session.
  • Zoom session cookies (set inside the Zoom iframe during live lessons, e.g. _zm_*) — set by Zoom Video Communications when you join a live class. We do not set these; they are controlled entirely by Zoom and described in Zoom’s own cookie notice. 3rd-party (Zoom Video Communications, Inc.). Strictly necessary for the requested service (joining the class). Session to 1 year depending on the specific cookie.
  • oll-cookie-consent — stores your cookie-consent preferences so we can honour them on subsequent visits and so we do not show you the banner again unnecessarily. 1st-party. Strictly necessary. 1 year (after which we will ask again).
  • oll-cookie-consent-version: records which wording of our cookie banner your choice answered, so that we ask again when the wording changes. 1st-party. *Strictly necessary.* 1 year.

If we add or remove cookies, we will update this list before the change takes effect.

5. How to manage your preferences

You can change your choice at any time by clicking the Manage cookies link in the footer of any page on the Site. The cookie banner will reopen and you can accept or reject the non-essential cookies described in §3. Withdrawing consent is as easy as giving it.

You can also control cookies through your browser settings. Most browsers let you view, delete, and block cookies from specific sites. Note that blocking strictly necessary cookies will prevent core features of the Site (login, cart, checkout, booking) from working.

6. Changes to this Notice

We may update this Notice when our cookie use changes or when the law requires. The "last updated" date shown at the top of this page reflects the most recent revision. If the changes are material — for example a new category of cookies — we will ask for your consent again through the banner.

7. Contact

For any question about this Notice or about how we handle your personal data, please contact:

Ricotti Sisters Limited