What counts as a cookie here
Small files a site writes to your browser, plus the equivalents: local storage, session storage and pixels. They are grouped below by what they do, because the purpose is what determines whether your consent is required.
Strictly necessary
These are set without asking, because without them the site cannot serve a page correctly.
- Session flag from the age gate, so the confirmation is not repeated on every page.
- Security and anti-abuse tokens used while a request is processed.
- Load-balancing values written by the delivery network in front of the site.
They carry no identity, and they are not used to build any profile of you.
Preferences
Set only if you use a feature that needs to remember a choice, such as a display setting. Nothing in this category is required to read the site, and refusing it costs you only that one convenience.
Analytics
Used to count pages, not people. The measurement is configured without user identifiers and without cross-site identifiers, so it reports how many times a page was opened rather than who opened it. These are set after consent and not before.
Marketing
None are set. This site carries no display advertising and runs no retargeting. Its funding comes from affiliate links, which are ordinary links with tracking handled by the destination platform after you leave, not by storage written here. If that ever changes, this page changes first and consent is asked for before anything is set.
Duration
| Category | Typical lifetime |
|---|---|
| Strictly necessary | The browsing session |
| Preferences | Until you clear them |
| Analytics | Short-lived, days not years |
| Marketing | Not used |
How to refuse
Through the consent controls. The first visit shows a prompt with accept, reject and per-category choices. The footer link reopens it whenever you want to change your mind.
Through your browser. Every major browser can block or delete cookies for one site or for all sites, and doing so overrides anything asked for here.
Through a browser signal. Where your browser sends Global Privacy Control, it is treated as a refusal of non-essential storage, and no prompt is needed for that refusal to take effect.
What refusing costs you
Nothing that matters. Every review, ranking and legal page on this site reads exactly the same with analytics off. The complaint channels described at /report/ and /ncii-report/ work without any optional storage.
Do Not Track
The older Do Not Track header is not honoured as a separate mechanism, because no shared meaning for it was ever agreed. Global Privacy Control is honoured, as described above.
Third parties
The providers that host this site and deliver its files see requests as part of delivering them, and the storage they set falls under strictly necessary. Analytics storage is described above. Nothing else is set from this domain.
Questions
Cookie and tracking questions go to [email protected]. First reply within 72 hours, final answer within 5 business days. How the resulting data is handled in general is described at /privacy/, and requests about your own data go through /dsar/.
Questions people ask
Can I read the site with everything refused?
Yes. Only the session flag from the age gate and basic security values remain, and they are needed to serve a page at all. Nothing else affects what you can read.
Do affiliate links set cookies here?
Not from this site. A link takes you to the destination platform, and any tracking after that point belongs to that platform and is governed by its own policies.
Do you honour Global Privacy Control?
Yes. A GPC signal is read as a refusal of non-essential storage, so no analytics storage is set and the prompt does not need answering.
Are there advertising cookies?
No. This site runs no display advertising and no retargeting. If that were ever introduced, this page would be updated and consent asked for before anything was set.
How do I change my choice later?
Use the cookie link in the footer to reopen the controls, or clear cookies for this domain in your browser. Both take effect immediately.