How Are Cookies Used on This Nonprofit Educational Site?
A plain explanation of the cookies this site sets, why they exist, and how you can control them.
Last updated: 12 June 2024.
About Cookies
A cookie is a small text file a website asks your browser to store. The next time you load a page, the browser hands that file back, and the site can recognize your session, remember a preference, or count a visit. Nothing dramatic happens — it is mostly bookkeeping.
Cookies fall into two groups by how long they last. Session cookies live only while your browser tab is open and disappear the moment you close it. Persistent cookies stay on your device for a set period, sometimes days, sometimes months, and let the site remember you across separate visits. We tell you which kind we rely on below.
Cookies We Use
This is an educational nonprofit, not a commercial storefront, so our cookie footprint is deliberately small.
Essential cookies
These keep the site working. They hold your session together as you move between pages and record whether you have responded to the cookie consent banner. Without them, basic functions break, so they cannot be switched off from within the site.
Analytics cookies
These help us understand which articles people actually read and where pages load slowly. The picture is aggregate — traffic patterns and performance, not the identity of any single reader.
Advertising cookies
We do not run advertising cookies today. We mention the category because a future version of the site may use them to personalize content, and we would rather be upfront than surprise you later.
Third-Party Cookies
Some cookies can be set by services other than this site. Here is where things stand right now.
Analytics providers and advertising networks fall under "planned, not active." If we adopt an analytics platform or, further down the road, an advertising partner, their cookies would appear at that point — and we would update this page before they did.
The one third party already in the picture is our content delivery network. A CDN stores copies of pages and files on servers closer to you so things load faster, and it may set a cookie to route your request efficiently or guard against abusive traffic. That function is about delivery speed and security, not tracking your reading habits.
Controlling Cookies
Your browser is the real control panel. Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge all let you block cookies outright, clear the ones already stored, or accept only those from sites you choose. The settings live under privacy or security menus, and each browser publishes step-by-step instructions if you need them.
One honest caveat: opting out has consequences. If you block essential cookies, the consent banner may reappear on every visit and some pages may not behave as intended. Blocking analytics cookies costs you nothing — the site works exactly the same, we simply learn a little less about what is useful.
Want the fuller picture of how we handle data? Our Privacy Policy covers what we collect and why, and the Terms of Use set out how the site may be used.
Policy Changes
We revise this policy when our practices change — for example, if we turn on analytics or bring in a new third-party service. The date at the top of this page always reflects the most recent revision, so it is the quickest way to check whether anything has shifted since your last visit.
When a change is significant, we will flag it through a notice on the site rather than expecting you to spot the edit yourself. If something here is unclear, Contact us and we will explain it in plain terms.