Actually, there aren’t any cookies set by us. No sneaky tracking going on here!
The site does though contain code which counts visitors and determines things such as which pages are most popular.
No personal or confidential data is created or stored by this code. None of this information allows anyone to identify you specifically as an individual or anything about what your favourite colour is and whether you prefer cats or dogs.
The code used is created by Fathom Analytics, an independent privacy-focused Canadian company whose business ethos is to avoid the extensive tracking that some other analytics software imposes on users to gather data.
The service allows us to collect and process anonymous statistical data about details of your visit to this website, including which pages you viewed, the average time a user spends on this site, plus traffic data – eg. location data (which country a visitor came from), if you came from a link on another site, or a search engine, and so on.
Web designers like to know this kind of stuff so they can judge if it’s still worthwhile supporting obsolete browsers with regard to the ongoing technical development and functionality of our site. Do they still need to include code for Netscape Navigator 2 from 1995? (No, they don’t).
We also note basic information about whether a viewer is browsing on a computer or mobile device, and which web browser they use. You can understand though why it’s useful to us to know where our visitors are coming from, any ads or links on other sites they clicked to get here, and which of our pages they’re reading – or ignoring!
As above, this site doesn’t set any cookies for our visitor statistics. However, if you click on any links to third-party sites or social media networks, they may set cookies which can be used to enhance your profile on their service or contribute to the data they gather.
Please note that these websites may/should have their own privacy policies. Remember not everybody is as nice as us, so because we have no control over them, we have to state that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for their policies or content. So be careful out there.
Cookies are a practical and convenient mechanism for conveying information from one session to another; over 90% of websites currently use cookies. For example, a user’s viewing preferences might be stored in a persistent cookie so that when they revisit the website, they don’t have to re-enter their preferences. Cookies are how, for example, your bank or Amazon ‘remembers’ you when you revisit the site.
You can prevent the setting of cookies by adjusting the settings on your browser. Be aware that disabling cookies may affect the functionality of many websites which you visit, so it’s usually recommended that you do not disable all cookies. But a lot of people prefer to only allow cookies created directly from the sites they visit, but not via, say, a third-party ad service.