No cookie on this site logs anyone in, because there is nothing here to log in to. What remains is three categories: a small number of functional cookies set by the site, first-party analytics cookies, and third-party advertising cookies set by the networks that fill the ad slots. This cookie policy names the individual cookies where they are documented, gives their lifetimes, and sets out every route available for refusing them.
The full privacy policy for this site · Contact page for privacy and cookie questions
What a cookie does here, and what it does not
A cookie is a small file a site asks a browser to store so that the browser can be recognised on a later request. The mechanism is neutral; what matters is what each one is used for and who can read it.
Because this site has no accounts and no login, it sets no session cookie and no authentication cookie. Nothing here needs to remember who a reader is, and nothing attempts to. A cookie policy that opens with a paragraph about keeping you signed in has been copied from a template rather than written about the site it appears on.
Functional cookies set by this site
A small number of cookies exist to keep the site behaving sensibly: remembering that a notice was dismissed, and recording a cookie consent choice so that it does not have to be made again on every page.
They are set from this domain, hold no personal information, and expire on a short cycle. Blocking them breaks nothing important — the consequence is being asked the same question again.
There is one awkward consequence worth stating, because most policies leave it out. A refusal is itself remembered in a cookie. Clearing all cookies therefore clears the record of the refusal as well, and the choice has to be made again.
Analytics cookies
Google Analytics 4 sets two first-party cookies. _ga distinguishes one browser from another; a second cookie, whose name begins _ga_ and ends with the Analytics container identifier, holds session state. A default expiration of 2 years is documented for both.
Two browser limits make that headline figure misleading, and they are worth knowing. Chrome caps any cookie at 400 days regardless of what the site asks for. Safari reduces script-set cookies to 7 days when a visitor does not return. For most readers the practical lifetime is a week, not two years.
The data these cookies feed is aggregate. It is used to see which pages answer the question a reader arrived with. It is not sold, not used to build a profile of an individual, and not connected to a name or an email address. The retention window for user-level and event-level analytics data is set to 14 months, which is the longest option Google offers outside its paid Analytics 360 tier.
Advertising cookies, named individually
Google publishes this list; most cookie policies do not reproduce it.
Advertising here is served by third-party networks, including Google. Those networks set their own cookies to select an advertisement, cap how often the same one is shown, and measure whether it worked. The company's own published cookie reference gives the following:
– __gads · set from this site's own domain · up to 13 months · ad selection, measurement and security – __gpi · set from this site's own domain · up to 13 months · ad selection and security – IDE · set on doubleclick.net · 13 months in the EEA and the UK, 24 months elsewhere · ad selection and measurement – NID · set on google.com · 6 months · advertising, security, analytics and functionality – test_cookie · set on doubleclick.net · 15 minutes · checks whether the browser accepts cookies at all – receive-cookie-deprecation · set on doubleclick.net · 6 months · advertising and security
Two honest caveats. First, an advertising auction can involve more than one company, so a cookie from a network other than Google may appear; this site does not control which networks win a slot and cannot enumerate every one in advance. Second, none of these cookies are readable by this site. They belong to the network that set them and are governed by that network's own privacy policy.
Part of the IP address is removed from Google's advertising logs after 9 months, and cookie information after 18 months.
The opt-out link most cookie policies now get wrong
A large number of cookie policies, including ones written recently, still send readers to the Network Advertising Initiative opt-out page. That control no longer exists. The NAI shut down its opt-out tool for cookie-based and probabilistic interest-based advertising on September 15, 2025, along with its email identifier control, and told sites linking to it to move those links to the Digital Advertising Alliance's tools.
A policy still pointing at the retired page is sending readers to a control that does nothing, which is worse than offering no link at all.
The routes that currently work:
– WebChoices 2.0, at optout.aboutads.info, which covers cookies, IP addresses and probabilistic identifiers across participating networks – AppChoices, for advertising identifiers on mobile devices – The token-based tool, for hashed identifiers such as an email address used for matching
All three are reachable from youradchoices.com/control. This list is re-checked at every review of this page, because it has already changed once.
Turning off personalisation at Google
Google's controls live in My Ad Center at myadcenter.google.com, and using them requires being signed in to a Google Account — the settings attach to the account rather than to the browser.
Turning personalisation off does not reduce the number of advertisements. The same slots are filled; the selection simply stops drawing on browsing history. Any policy suggesting that an opt-out makes advertising disappear is describing something that does not happen.
Browser controls, and what they cost
Every major browser can block or delete cookies, either wholesale or per site, from its privacy settings. Blocking third-party cookies alone removes the advertising cookies listed above while leaving the first-party analytics cookies in place; blocking everything removes both.
This site works fully with cookies switched off. No page depends on stored state, and no content is gated behind a consent choice.
Private or incognito windows discard cookies when the window closes, which achieves the same result for a single session without changing default settings — and, for the same reason, discards any opt-out made inside them.
Consent signals and Global Privacy Control
Readers in the UK and the EEA are asked for consent before any non-essential cookie is set. Refusing costs nothing and the choice can be changed at any time.
California requires covered businesses to treat a Global Privacy Control signal as a valid request to stop selling or sharing personal information. This site treats a GPC signal as a refusal of advertising and analytics cookies for every reader who sends one, regardless of where they are and regardless of whether the obligation applies. Firefox and Brave send the signal; other browsers offer it as an extension.
Changes to this page
Cookie names, lifetimes and opt-out addresses change without notice — the NAI shutdown is the obvious recent example — so this page is re-checked against the published references on the same rolling 90-day cycle as the rest of the site.
The date in the byline records when that check last happened, not when the page was last edited. Anything found to be wrong here can be reported through the contact page and will be corrected.