Cookie Policy

This page is the detail behind the consent banner. It says what gets set on your device when you open Cover365, who sets it, how long it lasts, and how to change your mind after clicking something. What we do with reader data more broadly is in our privacy policy. Last updated: August 2026.

What a cookie is, and what else does the same job

A cookie is a small text file a site asks your browser to keep and hand back on the next page load. Some are read only by us, which makes them first-party. Others are read by a company whose code runs on our pages, usually an advertising or measurement vendor, which makes them third-party. That distinction matters far more than the word cookie does.

Other things do the same work and are covered here: local and session storage in your browser, tracking pixels, which are one-pixel images whose only job is to report that they loaded, device and advertising identifiers, and the code inside an embedded video or social post. Where this page says cookies, it means all of it.

The four categories we allow

Everything set on this site belongs in one of four groups, and the consent manager uses exactly these groups, so what you agreed to matches what you were shown.

Only the first is set before you have chosen anything. The other three wait for a decision where the law where you sit requires one, and where it does not, they still wait, because a consent screen you can ignore on a technicality is theatre.

Strictly necessary. Security, load balancing across our delivery network, holding a comment session open, and remembering the consent choice itself. Refusing these is not offered, because the site cannot be served without them.
Preferences. Small settings that make a second visit less annoying: dark or light mode, text size, whether a notice was already dismissed.
Analytics. Counting page views, scroll depth and time on page, so the desk knows which stories were read to the end. We look at this in aggregate.
Advertising. Delivering ads, capping how often the same browser sees one, measuring clicks, and, if you consent, contributing to the cross-site profile that makes an ad personalised.

Who else sets things here, and why they are not named

Advertising pays for this newsroom, which means companies other than us run code on these pages: the exchanges and ad server that fill our display inventory, our analytics provider, the email service that handles a newsletter click, our hosting and delivery network, and whichever platform an embedded post or video comes from.

We do not print vendor names in this document, because the list moves with the ad stack and a stale name on a policy page is worse than no name. The live list is inside the consent manager, which names every vendor currently permitted to set anything, says what each one claims to do, and gives its cookie lifespans. It is generated from what is actually running. The commercial terms behind it are on our advertising page.

Personalised ads, non-personalised ads, and what your choice changes

A personalised ad is chosen partly from a profile built across the sites a browser has visited. A non-personalised one is chosen from the page you are reading and rough signals such as your country and the language of the page. The second kind pays us less. That is the trade, and you are not obliged to care about our side of it.

Refusing advertising cookies does not remove advertising and it does not close an article. You will still see ads, selected from the page rather than from a profile, and the whole site stays open. There is no paywall waiting behind a refusal and no metered limit.

Turning it off: our control, your browser, and the industry opt-outs

The consent manager is reachable from the footer of every page, not only the first time you arrive. Open it, change a category, and the change applies from the next page load. Withdrawing consent should be exactly as easy as giving it, and if it is not, that is a bug and we want to hear about it.

Your browser is the blunter instrument and works across every site at once. All the major browsers let you block third-party cookies, clear what is stored, and open a window that keeps nothing, usually under a privacy or site-data setting. Blocking everything can break an embedded video or a comment login anywhere, this site included, and that is a fair price if you want it.

Industry opt-out pages cover many advertising vendors in one action. If a vendor belongs to the Digital Advertising Alliance, its YourAdChoices page will list it. The Network Advertising Initiative runs a similar opt-out for its members. If you hold a Google account, its ad settings control personalisation across sites using Google’s advertising products. Each records your choice in a cookie of its own, so clearing your cookies also clears the opt-out, a design fault nobody has fixed in fifteen years.

How long they last, and what to do if this page is wrong

Session cookies die when you close the tab. Preference cookies last up to a year, since the point of a preference is not being asked again. Our record of your consent choice is kept for six months, then we ask afresh. Analytics identifiers typically run up to two years from your last visit, and advertising identifiers vary by vendor from days to two years, with each figure shown in the consent manager.