Cookie Policy
This page lists the cookies and similar files this site sets, who sets them, and how to switch off the ones a page does not need. It sits underneath our privacy policy, which covers reader data generally.
We would keep it shorter if we could. A site paid for by advertising carries more of these than it would choose, and being vague about it on a page called Cookie Policy would be a strange place to start.
What these things actually are
A cookie is a small text file a site asks your browser to keep and hand back on the next request. That is the whole mechanism. It is how a site remembers you already dismissed the consent banner, and it is also how an advertising company recognises a browser it has seen somewhere else.
Two relatives do similar work. Local storage holds slightly larger settings inside the browser and does not travel with every request. A pixel is a tiny image or line of script loaded from another company’s server, telling it a page was opened without needing a file of its own. Where this page says cookies it means all three, because the law treats them the same way and so should we.
The four categories we use
The consent banner sorts everything into four groups, and the wording in the banner matches the wording here. One group cannot be switched off. The other three are off until you turn them on.
Strictly necessary cookies come from us and do the plumbing. They hold your consent choice so you are not asked again on every page, keep a comment session attached to the right person, and block the automated abuse that takes small sites down. They have no advertising use, which is why they run on legitimate interests rather than consent.
- Strictly necessary. Consent record, comment session, security and load balancing. Always on.
- Preferences. Light or dark theme, text size, notices you have dismissed, region defaults.
- Analytics. Which stories were opened, how far down the page people got, which sections earn their keep.
- Advertising. Identifiers used to decide which ads you see, to cap how often you see the same one, and to catch click fraud.
Who sets them besides us
Some come from us and most come from companies we work with, which is normal for an ad-supported site. In categories they are our analytics provider, the ad server that fills our display slots, the programmatic exchanges bidding into those slots, the service that keeps spam out of comments, and the platforms whose video and social embeds appear inside stories.
We are not going to print a vendor list that is wrong within a month. The live list of every company able to set something on your browser sits inside the consent manager, which is the only version guaranteed to be current. If you would rather have it explained, write to support@blueholemen.com and an editor will answer.
Personalised and non-personalised advertising
Accept the advertising category and the exchanges may use identifiers to choose ads based on what your browser has been seen reading, here and elsewhere. Refuse it and you still see advertising. It is picked from the page you are on and a rough location instead of a profile, which is worth less to us.
Refusing does not remove every advertising cookie, and we would rather explain that than let you discover it. A non-personalised ad still has to be counted, capped so you are not shown the same one nine times in a morning, and checked for fraud. What stops is the profiling that targets you. How the advertising money reaches the reporting is on our ownership and funding page.
Changing your mind, whenever you like
The consent link in the site footer opens the manager from any page. It shows what you agreed to and when, lets you switch each category on or off, and applies from the next page load.
Withdrawing consent takes one click and needs no reason, and nothing about the site gets worse except the price of our advertising. We also honour the Global Privacy Control signal, so a browser or extension that sends it is treated as refusing advertising and analytics without you opening the banner at all.
Browser controls and the industry opt-outs
Every browser can block or delete cookies from its own settings, usually filed under privacy or site data, and most can block third-party cookies while keeping first-party ones. Clearing your cookies also clears the record of your consent choice, so the banner comes back. That is the banner working rather than ignoring you.
Beyond the browser, the advertising industry runs its own opt-out pages: YourAdChoices from the Digital Advertising Alliance, the Network Advertising Initiative’s opt-out tool, and Your Online Choices in Europe. If you are signed in to an account with one of the large platforms, its ad settings page matters more than anything on this site. None of these stop advertising. They limit the targeting behind it.
How long they last
Lifespans are set by whoever set the cookie, so ours are short and some of the third-party ones are not.
Session cookies die when you close the browser. Our consent record is kept for six months and then we ask again. Preferences last up to a year. Analytics identifiers usually run to 13 months. Advertising identifiers set by the exchanges commonly run to 13 months or two years under their own policies, and the exact durations sit in the consent manager, because those are their numbers not ours.
Updates to this page
When we add or drop a category, or a vendor change alters what gets set on your browser, this page and the consent manager are updated together and the banner reappears. A wording fix does not trigger that.
Anything you want to raise about this page, including a cookie in your browser that does not seem to match what is written here, goes to support@blueholemen.com. A reader has caught us on exactly that before, and the reader was right.
Last updated: August 2026
