Why no cookies?

I love cookies, but only real ones. Not internet cookies.

The thing about cookies is that you only need them if you run an ecommerce or membership site, where they are essential for managing things like login and shopping basket history. You don’t need to ask permission to use them.

For most websites, you won’t need these cookies. If you do ask for cookie consent, it’s usually because you’re allowing another company to track your visitors. Most people blindly add little bits of code to their site and hand over all that juicy data without a second thought. They’re usually lured by the promise that these companies will help them sell you more crap you don’t need and spam you on social.

I don’t do that.

All the tools I use to make this site work don’t collect ANY first-party data, so I don’t need to ask for cookie consent because I don’t use any nasty tracking cookies.

Hang on. You’ve got an email signup down there, sunshine… that’s first-party data!

Yes, you can choose to give me your first-party data when you join the mailing list, but it’s not tied to any other usage data – so calm down.

I use Mailchimp to send you emails – like it or not, they’re owned by Intuit, based in the US. They’ve made various promises about how they’ll use the data we give them, and we’ll have to trust them on that, I guess.

I do use RankMath analytics to see how anonymised users interact with the site and what content on this site is most popular, but there is no user tracking data involved.

You can see all the tools I use in the privacy policy and learn more about where those tools store your data and how they process it. If you have “beef” with them, your best bet is to contact their legal team.