Cookie Notice

This Cookie Notice applies to the Invest Stratford website located at https://www.investstratford.com/ (the “Site”). This Site is owned and operated by the Stratford Economic Enterprise Development Corporation (referred to as “SEED Co.,” “we,” “us,” or “our”).

This Cookie Notice is intended to inform you about our use of cookies, analytics, and other technologies on our Site. Please read through this Cookie Notice carefully so that you may decide to consent, refuse to consent, or later withdraw your consent to the collection and use of your Personal Information.

This Cookie Notice is effective: January 7, 2022.

1. Consent

(a) Providing Consent

Having reviewed this Cookie Notice, or having been given the opportunity to do so, and by clicking on the “I Accept” icon of the pop-up that opens when you enter our Site, you expressly consent to all of the provisions of this Cookie Notice.

(b) If You Reject

You may choose to not consent to our use of cookies and related technologies. All you must do is disable the use of cookies by turning off the cookie function on your browser. Instructions may be found at https://www.aboutcookies.org/. However, please note that if you choose to disable the use of all cookies, some portions of our Site will not work properly. For example, you may not be able to chat with our bot or have the bot remember previous conversations.

(c) Withdrawing Consent

You may at any time withdraw your full or partial consent with future effect, and without affecting the lawfulness of using cookies or other similar technologies based on the consent you provided before you withdrew it. Please see the instructions above on how to disable the cookies.

2. What are cookies?

Cookies are small data files sent from a website and stored on a user's web browser. Cookies are useful for many tasks, such as notifying a website of the user's previous activity, notifying the website that the user has logged into the website, or even remembering the user’s location to provide location-specific services. Cookies do not harm your computer in any way, and some are automatically deleted after a certain period of time, such as six months.

There are four general categories of cookies that are used on websites:

Strictly necessary (or essential) cookies. These cookies are essential to enable you to move around a website and use its features, such as services you have asked for. Without these cookies, those services would not be available to you. This includes, for example, browsing as a registered user, accessing secure areas of the website, or using a website’s shopping cart feature.

Analytical or Performance cookies. These cookies collect information about how visitors use a website, for instance which pages visitors go to most often, and if they get error messages from web pages. These cookies don’t collect information that identifies a visitor. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. It is only used to improve how the website works.

Functionality 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. This allows you to have a better experience while using the website. The information these cookies collect may be anonymized and they cannot track your browsing activity on other websites.

Targeting or advertising cookies. These cookies collect information about your browsing habits to make advertising 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 organizations such as advertisers. Quite often targeting or advertising cookies will be linked to website functionality provided by the other organization.

3. Our use of cookies

(a) Do we use cookies on our Site?

Yes. Like the vast majority of websites out there, we use certain types of cookies on our Site. This allows us to:

• determine how many users visit our Site and the pages they accessed;
• identify visitors who return to our Site;
• determine where our visitors came from; and,
• deliver YouTube content embedded in our Site.

By collecting this information, we learn what parts of our Site are the most interesting or valuable to our visitors and can monitor overall interest in our Site. This, in turn, helps us upgrade our Site and improve our offerings for our visitors. We also have embedded YouTube videos on our Site, and YouTube uses functionality and targeting cookies.

Categorically, we use Analytical/Performance Cookies provided by Google. Otherwise, we do not use advertising cookies on our Site and do not allow third parties to use those types of cookies on our Site except the YouTube cookies mentioned above.

‍4. Data Privacy Contact

If you have any questions regarding this Cookie Notice or the cookie practices of SEED Co. or if you require assistance to withdraw your consent to our use of cookies, please contact us by sending an email to info@investstratford.com or in writing to SEED Co., 3rd floor, 82 Erie St., Stratford, ON N5A 2M4. Attention: Chief Privacy Officer.

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