Cookie policy

1. What is a cookie?

Our website uses cookies, which are small files of text that we place on your computer. These cookies allow us to remember your preferences and help us to provide you with the best experience and to continuously improve our site.

In practice, different types of cookies can be distinguished:

First and third-party cookies: Whether a cookie is 'first' or 'third' party depends on the person placing the cookie. First-party cookies are those set by the Web site that is being visited by the user at the time. On the contrary, third-party cookies are not created by Tractebel but by a third party like Google, YouTube, etc.
Persistent and session cookies: A second distinction is made on the basis of the lifetime of the cookie. Persistent cookies remain on the user’s device for the period of time specified in the cookie. They are activated each time that the user visits the Web site that created that particular cookie. On the contrary, session cookies are temporary: they persist only for the duration of the browser session (which starts when a user opens the browser window and finishes when he closes the browser window). Once you close the browser, all session cookies are deleted.
Essential and non-essential cookies: A third distinction is based on the purpose of cookies. Essential cookies are those that are necessary for good communication and which facilitate navigation (they allow for example the return to the previous page). They are also called “technical cookies”. On the contrary, non-essential cookies are those without which the site can still function properly. This includes, for example, functional cookies, which improve the user experience (for example, by retaining the user's choice of language or identifiers, or by retaining the "shopping cart"), or analysis cookies (such as Google Analytics) and tracking cookies, which analyse the behaviour of users on the website and retain their preferences (pages viewed, time and geographical area viewed, number of visits, etc.).

2. What cookies do we use and why?

We use cookies on this website to collect standard internet log information and details of our visitors behaviour patterns. This is so we can obtain statistics on the number of visits and determine popular pages on the site. This helps us improve our web content and better understand what our users want. We do not use this information for anything other than our own analysis.

We use cookies to:

remember your language and cookies preferences;
analyse web statistics and performance and personalisation.

What specific cookies do we use on https://tractebel-engie.com and https://tractebel-engie.be?

Third party cookies:

COOKIE NAME	PURPOSE AND LIFETIME	WHAT DOES IT DO?	THIRD PARTY
_ga	This cookie is used to distinguish site visitors. It expires 2 years after last visit.	This cookie is placed by Google Analytics. We use Google Analytics to analyse the behaviour of visitors to our website. Based on these analyses we can improve our website to better meet our visitors' expectations. This cookie also serves to identify recurring visitors. Complete details can be found on Google's webpage: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devg uides/collection/analyticsjs/cookieusage.	Google
_gat	This cookie is used to throttle request rate and to divide requests in to different regions on website. It expires 1 minute after last visit.	This cookie is placed by Google Analytics. It is used by Google Analytics to reduce the number of "requests" sent to it in order to be more efficient and less demanding of your connection. Complete details can be found on Google's webpage: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devg uides/collection/analyticsjs/cookieusage.	Google
gid	This cookie is used to identify a site visitors journey on the website. It expires 24 after last visit.	This cookie is placed by Google Analytics. It is relatively similar (in structure) to the _ga cookie. It stores the Session ID of a visitor and it groups a visitor's entire activity for one session together. This enables Google Analytics to identify a visitor's journey/session. Complete details can be found on Google's webpage: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devg uides/collection/analyticsjs/cookieusage.	Google

First party cookies:

COOKIE NAME	PURPOSE AND LIFETIME	WHAT DOES IT DO?
accepts_cookies_from_tractebel-engie.com	This cookie is used to keep track of acceptance of the cookie notice. It expires after 3,5 years.	This cookie is placed by tractebel-engie.com. It’s only purpose is to “remember” whether you previously accepted our cookies or not. In case of previous acceptance, the “cookie notice” doesn’t have to be displayed every time you visit our website. This cookie does not serve to identify you, nor does it keep track of your session on our website.
tractebel_locale	This cookie is used to keep track of language and cookie preference. It expires after 1 year.	This cookie is placed by tractebel-engie.com. It remembers your language and region preferences, according to the choices you previously made on our website. This means you only have to select your region and language once. Of course you can always manually modify your choices. This cookie does not serve to identify you, nor does it keep track of your session on our website.

3. How and when do we ask for your consent ?

To place cookies on your computer, we ask for your consent, except for the cookie tractebel_locale because this is necessary to avoid language issues in the page.

By clicking on the button “Agree and proceed” on the Cookie Pop-Up on our homepage or by not clicking on any of the two options and instead continuing to use our web site, you are agreeing to our placing cookies on your computer in order to analyse the way you use our Website.

If you do not want to accept cookies, you can click on the button “Change settings” on the Cookie Pop-Up which will send you to a page where you can set your cookie preferences. You can refuse all cookies except for the cookie tractebel_locale.

4. Can you withdraw your consent?

You can withdraw your consent at any time. If you wish to do so, you will need to delete your cookies using Tractebel’s dedicated tool or your internet browser settings that allows you to refuse the setting of all or some cookies.For further information, please see below “5. How to delete and block our cookies?”.

However, if you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies), you may not be able to access all or parts of our site. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies or you have clicked on the “Change settings” button on our homepage, our system will issue cookies as soon as you visit our site.

5. How to delete and block our cookies?

Tractebel has set up a very simple tool to use if you wish to delete all or part of the cookies on our site. This tool is available here.

Moreover, if you wish to block cookies more generally (and not only those of Tractebel), you should be aware that most browsers offer tools for this purpose through the browser settings (usually in the “options” or “preferences” menu of the browser). You will find below links to explanations related to cookies for the main search engines. You can also use the 'Help' option in your internet browser for more details.