Privacy and cookie policy
What we collect, what our advertising partners collect, and how to turn any of it off. Written to be read rather than to be survived.
Last updated
Who we are
This website is operated by Cold Open Media Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 13284770), whose registered office is Unit 4, Whitcomb Works, 18 Blackfriars Road, Manchester M3 5AB, United Kingdom. For the purposes of UK data protection law we are the data controller for this site. You can reach our privacy contact at [email protected].
What we collect
We collect as little as we can get away with, and the pages themselves collect almost nothing. Specifically:
- Server logs. Our hosting provider records the IP address, user agent, requested URL, referring URL and timestamp of each request. These logs exist to keep the site running and to detect abuse. They are deleted after 30 days and are not used to build a profile of you.
- Information you send us. If you use the contact form or email us, we receive whatever you put in it: your name, email address, chosen topic and message. We use it to reply and for nothing else.
- Your preferences. Your theme choice and your cookie choices are stored in your browser local storage. They never leave your device and we cannot read them from our servers.
- Advertising and analytics data, but only if you consent. See the two sections below.
We do not ask you to create an account, we do not run a newsletter, and we do not sell, rent or share personal data with anyone for their own marketing purposes.
Cookies and similar technologies we set
A cookie is a small file a site asks your browser to store. Related technologies such as local storage work similarly. This site uses very few of them, and none that are not strictly necessary are set before you agree.
| Name | Type | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|---|
| coldopen:consent | Local storage | Remembers the cookie choices you made, so the banner does not ask again. | Until you clear it |
| coldopen:theme | Local storage | Remembers whether you chose the light or dark theme. | Until you clear it |
| coldopen:anchor-dismissed | Session storage | Remembers that you dismissed the anchored advert, for this browsing session. | When you close the tab |
These three are strictly necessary or purely functional: they hold a preference you expressed and cannot identify you. Nothing in this table is written until you either use the feature or make a choice on the banner.
Advertising, and how Google uses cookies
This site is funded partly by display advertising. When you consent to advertising cookies, advertising is served by third-party vendors, including Google.
- Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this website or other websites.
- Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visit to this site and/or other sites on the internet.
- You may opt out of personalised advertising by visiting Google Ads Settings.
- Alternatively, you can opt out of a third-party vendor’s use of cookies for personalised advertising at aboutads.info, or for European users at Your Online Choices.
- Google’s own explanation of how it uses information from sites that use its services is at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.
Advertising cookies may collect your IP address, device and browser information, the pages you viewed on this site, and interactions with ads, and may combine that with information collected on other sites in order to select advertising and measure its performance. Where personalised advertising is used, these vendors may build a profile of your interests.
We implement Google Consent Mode v2. Before you make a choice, ad_storage, ad_user_data, ad_personalization and analytics_storage are all set to denied, and no advertising or analytics tag is permitted to write or read a cookie. If you accept advertising, those signals are updated to granted and the vendor tags load. If you reject, they remain denied; you will still see advertising, but it will be non-personalised, and the vendors are instructed not to use cookies for personalisation.
Our editorial disclosure. Advertising on this site is bought against the site as a whole or against broad sections. It cannot be bought against a named game, company or article. Advertisers do not see editorial before publication and have no influence over what we cover or what we score. Every advertising slot is labelled “Advertisement” and is visually separated from editorial content. We run no sponsored posts, no native advertising and no affiliate links.
Analytics
If you consent to analytics, we use an aggregate page-measurement tool to count page views and referrers so that we know which articles are read. It is configured to anonymise IP addresses and is not used for advertising, cross-site tracking or profile building. If you do not consent, no analytics cookie or identifier is set and we simply do not get the numbers.
Changing your mind
You can change or withdraw your consent at any time, and it takes effect immediately. Use the control, which is also in the footer of every page on this site. Withdrawing consent does not affect the lawfulness of anything done before you withdrew it.
You can also block or delete cookies in your browser settings, and most browsers offer a setting that blocks all third-party cookies. Doing so will not stop this site from working, because nothing here depends on advertising cookies to function.
Lawful bases for processing
- Consent for advertising cookies, analytics and any non-essential storage. You give it on the banner and can withdraw it at any time.
- Legitimate interests for server logs and security monitoring, where our interest is keeping the site online and defending it against abuse, balanced against the short retention period and the fact that logs are not used to profile readers.
- Legitimate interests for replying to a message you chose to send us, where our interest is simply responding to correspondence.
Your rights
Under UK and EU data protection law you have the right to ask us for a copy of the personal data we hold about you, to have it corrected or erased, to restrict or object to how we process it, and to receive it in a portable format. Where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw that consent at any time.
Write to [email protected] and we will respond within one month. In practice, for most readers the honest answer will be that we hold nothing about you beyond an expired server log. If you are unhappy with our response you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk, or to your local supervisory authority in the EEA.
How long we keep things
- Server logs: 30 days, then deleted automatically.
- Contact form messages: 24 months in our mail system, then deleted. The form provider deletes its copy after 30 days.
- Correction correspondence: kept for as long as the corrected article remains online, because it is part of the record.
- Preferences in your browser: until you clear your browser storage. We cannot delete these for you.
International transfers
Our hosting and mail providers operate within the United Kingdom and the European Economic Area. The contact form provider and the advertising vendors named above may process data in the United States and elsewhere. Where that happens, transfers rely on the UK International Data Transfer Addendum, the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, or an applicable adequacy decision, as set out in those providers’ own terms.
Children
This site is written for adults and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 13, and we do not request advertising personalisation for traffic identified as coming from a child-directed context. If you believe a child has sent us personal data, contact us and we will delete it.
Changes to this policy, and how to contact us
If we change this policy in a way that affects what is collected or who receives it, we will update the date at the top of this page and, where the change is material, ask for consent again rather than relying on the consent you gave to the previous version. Previous versions are available on request.
For anything in this policy, write to [email protected] or use our contact page. Our terms of service are here.