Cookies

The short version

This site sets three cookies of its own. All three are first-party – read by this website and by nothing else – and none of them is used for advertising. Analytics and advertising tools load only if you allow them on the banner, and the section below names each one.

You can refuse the two that are not strictly necessary and the site works exactly as it did.

What each one is for

Only the third is strictly necessary. It exists to record a refusal, which is why refusing does not delete it.

• sct_vid – a random identifier, so a returning reader can be told from a new one. Kept for one year. It is not linked to your name unless you later send us the enquiry form.
• sc_lang – remembers which of the eleven languages you chose, so we never override it. Kept for one year.
• sct_cookie_consent – remembers how you answered the banner, so we do not ask again.

Analytics and advertising tools

These load only if you allow them on the cookie banner, and stop as soon as you withdraw that with Cookie settings at the foot of every page. They tell us which of our ads led to a message or a booked call, so we can stop paying for the ones that do not work.

When you send the form or book a call, these tools are told that it happened, with a reference number. They are not sent your name, your email address or what you wrote.

• Google Analytics (Google Ireland Limited) – which pages were read and whether a message or a booking followed. Cookies: _ga and _ga_*, kept for up to two years.
• Google Ads (Google Ireland Limited) – whether a visit from one of our Google ads went on to send a message or book a call, and showing our ads again to people who have visited. Cookies: _gcl_au, and _gcl_aw after an ad click, kept for 90 days.
• Google Tag Manager (Google Ireland Limited) – how we switch the tools above on and off. Unlike them, it loads before you answer the cookie banner, and until you allow cookies it is told you have not. It sets no cookies of its own, and it is loaded with rules that stop it reading our forms or what you click.

The lawful basis is your consent, given on the banner. Withdraw it at any time and they stop loading straight away; refusing costs you nothing on this site.

What we measure, and what declining changes

We count which pages people read, on our own servers, into our own database. This count is never sold, shared or sent to an advertising network; the tools named above are separate, and load only if you allow them.

Be clear about one thing, because most sites word it the other way: the count itself is not switched off by declining. What declining changes is what we keep about you – no IP address, no browser string, no cookie, only an anonymous count under a pseudonym that is regenerated every 24 hours and cannot be connected to you the next day.

We do this because measuring only the readers who accept cookies means measuring a biased slice and calling it the total.

How to refuse or change your mind

• Use the banner when it appears, or Cookie settings at the foot of any page to change your answer later.
• Every browser can block or delete cookies for one site. Deleting sct_cookie_consent brings the banner back.
• Blocking cookies for this site costs you nothing here – no feature depends on them.

Changes

If we add a cookie, this page changes on the same day and the date at the top says so.