Cookie Policy

1. What cookies are

A cookie is a small text file placed on your device by a website. Similar technologies include local storage, session storage, tracking pixels (tiny invisible images) and software development kits. They let a site remember a choice you made, count visitors, or tell an advertising network that a click led to a purchase. We use the word "cookies" throughout this page to cover all of them.

2. Your consent

The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations require your consent before non-essential cookies are set. When you first arrive you see a banner offering "Accept all" or "Essential only". Nothing outside the strictly necessary category runs until you choose. Your choice is stored in your browser so we do not have to ask again, and you can change it whenever you like using the methods in section 6.

3. Categories we use

Strictly necessary

Required to deliver the pages you request and to keep the site secure. These do not need consent and cannot be switched off in the banner. Examples: a local-storage entry recording your cookie choice (about 12 months), load-balancing and CDN routing cookies (session), and bot-mitigation cookies used by our hosting provider (session to 30 days).

Performance and analytics

Set only with consent. They tell us how many people visit, which articles are read, how far people scroll and where traffic came from, in aggregate. Typical lifetimes range from the session up to 24 months, and identifiers are pseudonymous — we cannot use them to work out your name.

Advertising and attribution

Set only with consent. These allow us and our advertising partners to measure which campaign brought you to the site and whether a click led to a purchase, so that campaigns can be reported and billed accurately. Native-advertising networks including Outbrain may set their own cookies or read click identifiers appended to the page URL. Typical lifetimes are 30 days to 13 months. Some of these partners act as independent controllers and process data under their own privacy and cookie notices.

Functional

Set only with consent. They remember preferences such as a dismissed notice so that the site behaves consistently on your next visit. Lifetimes are typically up to 12 months.

4. Third parties that may set cookies

• Our hosting provider and content delivery network, for delivery, caching and security.
• Analytics providers, for aggregated audience measurement and reporting.
• Advertising and native-content networks such as Outbrain, and other demand partners, for campaign attribution and frequency measurement.
• The advertiser you reach after clicking a promotional link, which sets its own cookies on its own domain once you leave this site.
• Web-font providers, which may log a request for the font files used in our design.

We do not control third-party cookies. Please consult the relevant provider's own policy for full details, and use its opt-out where one is offered.

5. What we do not do

We do not use cookies to collect payment details or to build a profile of your identity, health, beliefs or other sensitive characteristics, and we do not sell cookie data.

6. How to change or withdraw your choice

• Clear this site's cookies and site data in your browser settings; the consent banner will appear again on your next visit so you can choose differently.
• Block or delete cookies generally in your browser's privacy settings — most browsers let you refuse third-party cookies while keeping essential ones.
• Use private or incognito browsing, which discards cookies when you close the window.
• Enable "Do Not Track" or a similar privacy signal, or use a reputable tracker-blocking extension.
• Use industry opt-out tools such as Your Online Choices for interest-based advertising.

Refusing non-essential cookies does not stop you reading anything on this site. Blocking strictly necessary cookies may cause parts of the site to display or behave incorrectly.

7. Mobile devices

On mobile browsers the controls above are usually found under Settings, then Privacy or Site settings. Advertising identifiers can also be reset or limited in your device's privacy settings.

8. Changes to this policy

As our partners and tooling change, so will this policy. The date at the top of the page indicates the current version. Where a change materially affects how we use non-essential cookies we will ask for your consent again.

9. Contact

For questions about cookies or to make a data-protection request, email [email protected]. Our Privacy Policy explains the legal bases, retention periods and rights that apply to the data these technologies generate.