The short version
This site uses one analytics cookie, from Google Analytics, and it only exists if you accepted it in the banner. There is no advertising, no profiling and no sharing of what you do here with anyone else.
Nothing is stored on your device until you say yes. Google Analytics loads with storage switched off by default, and it is only switched on if you accept. If you decline, or simply ignore the banner, no analytics cookie is ever written and the site works exactly the same.
What a cookie is
A cookie is a small text file a website asks your browser to store so it can recognise you on a later visit. Cookies are what make shopping baskets and logins work, and they are also what makes it possible to follow someone around the internet building an advertising profile. This site uses them for neither of those things.
The cookies used, if you accept
Accepting the banner allows Google Analytics to set the following. Both are first-party cookies, which means they are readable only by this website.
- _ga
- Distinguishes one visitor from another so repeat visits are not counted as new people. Expires after 2 years.
- _ga_87GEQ05ZDL
- Keeps the state of the current session, so a visit that spans several pages is counted once. Expires after 2 years.
What I do with this is unglamorous: I look at which articles get read, which services people land on, and whether the site works on the devices people actually use. IP addresses are anonymised by Google before the data reaches the reports, and nothing is used to identify you personally or to advertise to you.
If you decline
Declining is a real option, not a formality. No cookie is written, no analytics data is collected, and nothing about the site degrades. The choice is remembered in your browser local storage so you are not asked on every page, which is a technical necessity rather than tracking: it never leaves your device and contains nothing but the word granted or denied.
You can change your mind at any time using the button above.
Google Fonts
Separately from analytics, the typefaces on this site load from Google Fonts. This sets no cookie, but your browser has to request the font files, and any request reveals your IP address and basic browser information to the server answering it. That happens whether or not you accept the analytics cookie.
Nothing else on this website talks to a third party. The pages contain ordinary links to client websites and to my Upwork profile, but those are plain links: nothing is embedded and nothing is loaded from them unless you click through. Once you do, you are on someone else's site under their policy, not mine.
Controlling cookies in your browser
Independently of the banner, you can review and delete cookies for any site in your browser settings, under Privacy in Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge. Blocking cookies entirely will not break anything on this website.
For everything else about how your information is handled, see the Privacy Policy.