Cookie Policy

We use cookies to make our websites more user-friendly. Find out about the main types of cookies we use, and what we use them for.

(Updated 22 April 2015)

The data we collect using cookies helps us understand our customers better so that we can provide a more focused user experience. Using the knowledge of your previous visits to our website, Pearson can enhance subsequent visits by tailoring our content to match your requirements.

We use cookies principally because we want to make our websites and mobile applications user-friendly, and we are interested in anonymous user behaviour. Generally our cookies don't store sensitive or personally identifiable information such as your name and address or credit card details.

In the unlikely event that our websites use cookies to store personal information about you, Pearson encrypts the personal data to prevent unauthorised use by anyone else.

Here's a list of the main types of cookies we use, and what we use them for. We've described them using the categories recommended by the International Chamber of Commerce in the ICC UK Cookie Guide.

(When we mention "cookies", we also mean web beacons and other technologies that collect information in a similar way to cookies on websites or emails. When we mention "websites", we also mean mobile applications and emails.)

Pearson's cookies typically contain:

a unique name set by the site that generated it
a value - the information within it that recalls your previous activities
an expiration date, which determines how long the cookie will remain active in your browser before being automatically deleted.

Find out how to manage cookies

Third-party cookies and social networks

If you click on a hyperlink from Pearson's websites to any third-party websites (for example, if you 'share' content from Pearson’s websites with friends or colleagues through social networks), you may be sent cookies from these third-party websites.

Third-party websites will have their own privacy and cookie policies which Pearson cannot control. Please check the third-party websites for more information about their cookies and how to manage them.

Do we track whether users open our emails?

Our emails may contain a “web beacon pixel” to tell us whether our emails are opened and verify any clicks through to links or advertisements within the email.

We may use this information for purposes including determining which of our emails are more interesting to users, and to query whether users who do not open our emails wish to continue receiving them.

The pixel will be deleted when you delete the email. If you do not wish the pixel to be downloaded to your device, you should read the email in plain text view or with images disabled.

Strictly necessary cookies

Performance cookies

These cookies collect information about how visitors use a website, for instance which pages visitors go to most often, and they let you store items in your shopping basket between visits. They may also show us which email or web page visitors clicked through from in order to visit our website, and whether you opened an email we sent you.

Some of these are analytics cookies, set using third party web analytics software, which allow us to monitor our website traffic. For example, we use Google Analytics and Universal Analytics cookies to help us do this. These analytics cookies may also tell us how many of our visitors are male or female, and may summarise the number of visitors who fall within certain age ranges, or certain interest categories. However, this sort of information is not linked to any individual; it just shows us what percentage of our visitors fall in particular categories.

Find out more about how Google uses your data or opt out from having your data sent to Google.

We will not pass this data to third parties in such a way that would allow them to identify visitors personally. However, we may associate this cookie data with other personally identifiable data submitted by you (for instance when you submit a form, or partially complete a form, or leave items in your shopping basket), in order to make sure that our communications are as relevant to you as possible.

Sometimes we may use this data to highlight Pearson products or services which we think will be of interest to you based on your use of our websites, or to contact you and offer help if you appear to be having difficulty completing an order.

We may also use third party cookies during e-commerce transactions to help prevent fraud.

By using Pearson's websites you agree we may place these types of cookies on your device.

Functional cookies

These cookies allow the website to remember choices you make (such as your user name, language or the region you are in) and provide enhanced, more personal features. For instance, these cookies can be used to remember changes you have made to text size, fonts and other parts of web pages that you can customise. They may also be used to provide services you have asked for such as watching a video or commenting on a blog. The information these cookies collect may be anonymised and they cannot track your browsing activity on other websites.

By using Pearson’s websites you agree we may place these types of cookies on your device.

Behaviourally targeted advertising cookies

These cookies are used to deliver adverts more relevant to you and your interests. They are also used to limit the number of times you see an advertisement as well as help measure the effectiveness of the advertising campaign.

They are usually placed by advertising networks with the website operator's permission. They remember that you have visited a website and this information is shared with other organisations such as advertisers.

Quite often, behaviourally targeted advertising cookies will be linked to site functionality provided by the other organisation.

Most of our websites do not use behaviourally targeted advertising cookies. We will ask for your consent before we use such cookies.

Cookie Policy

We use cookies to make our websites more user-friendly. Find out about the main types of cookies we use, and what we use them for.

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