Cookie Policy

A cookie is a small text file a site asks your browser to store. This policy is organised by what each file is for, because "necessary" and "analytics" describe very different things even though they arrive the same way.

Strictly necessary

These make the site work at all. They keep you signed in as you move between pages, hold the contents of the cashier form while you complete it, balance traffic across servers, and carry the security token that stops a third-party site submitting a request as you. They cannot be switched off without breaking login and payments, and they store no marketing data. Most expire when the browser closes; the session token lasts a matter of hours.

Preference

These remember choices so you do not repeat them: whether the sidebar is collapsed, which language variant you last used, and the fact that you have already answered the cookie banner. They typically last between a month and a year, and turning them off costs you convenience rather than function.

Analytics

These count visits in aggregate — which pages are read, how long a page holds attention, where a session ends. They tell us that a bonus page loses readers halfway down; they do not tell us who you are. They are set only if you accept them, and they usually last up to two years unless cleared sooner.

Marketing

These record that you arrived from a particular campaign or partner link, so that referral is attributed correctly, and they can be used to limit how often you see the same advert elsewhere. They are set only with your consent. Refusing them changes nothing about how the site behaves for you.

Cookies set by others

Some files come from services embedded in the page rather than from us — payment providers during a transaction, and any analytics or advertising platform you have consented to. Those providers set them under their own policies, which sit on their own sites. We do not control their contents or their lifetime.

Controlling cookies

• The banner is the quickest route: accept, reject non-essential, or open the detail view and choose category by category. Your answer is stored and you can reopen it at any time.
• Your browser can block or delete cookies for this site specifically, usually under Privacy or Site settings. Blocking strictly necessary cookies will break login.
• Private or incognito windows discard everything when the window closes, which means signing in again each visit.
• Device-level tracker blocking, built into recent versions of iOS and Android and into most privacy extensions, stops many marketing cookies before they are set.

Do Not Track

Browsers can send a Do Not Track signal, but there is no agreed standard for what a site must do with it, and most sites do nothing. We would rather be straightforward about that than imply a protection the signal does not deliver: use the banner or your browser settings, which do have a defined effect.

Changes

When the cookies used on this site change, this page is updated and the banner is shown again so your choice can be made against the current list.