What cookies are
Cookies are small text files a site stores in your browser. Some are deleted when you close the browser, others stay until they expire or you remove them. They let a site recognise a browser between requests.
What we set
The board is public and works without an account, so there is very little to remember about you.
Strictly necessary
- A session cookie that keeps a campaign form together across steps and protects forms against cross-site request forgery. It expires when you close your browser.
- A cookie named pc_locale, set only when you pick a country from the switcher, so we stop sending you to the one your address is in. It holds the country you picked and nothing else, and it lasts a year.
- A cookie named pc_ships_from, set only when you work the “selling from” switch on a comparison, so the next comparison you open starts where you left this one. It holds one word — whether you asked for the shops in your own country or for shops anywhere — never a country and never a product, and it lasts a year. Blocking it costs you nothing but that memory: the switch itself works from the address of the page, so it still filters the comparison you are looking at.
- A cookie named pc_consent, holding your answer to this notice: which version you answered, when you answered it, and a yes or no for each of the two optional purposes below. It holds nothing that identifies you and it lasts six months. It has to be a cookie our servers can read, rather than something kept in your browser, because whether we tell an affiliate network you agreed to be tracked is decided on our side at the moment you follow an offer.
- Your light or dark theme preference, kept in your browser’s local storage rather than in a cookie. It never reaches our servers.
These do not need your consent. The session cookie is what makes the service work at all, and the other two exist only because you worked a control that asked for them. None of them is used to recognise you on any other site, and none of them is set before you act.
Analytics
We measure traffic in aggregate so we know which categories are worth expanding. The tool is Google Analytics, loaded through Google Tag Manager. Once you accept, it sets its own cookies, named _ga and _ga_ followed by our property id, which last up to two years and hold a randomly generated id rather than your name.
Until you accept, none of it is loaded: no Google Analytics script is fetched, nothing is stored on your device, and Google Analytics is told nothing about your visit. Decline and it stays that way. Spam protection below is a separate matter, because the two pages carrying the “tell me when it opens” form load Google reCAPTCHA whatever you choose here. You can withdraw your consent at any time, and neither declining nor withdrawing ever grants advertising or personalisation consent, which we keep switched off whatever you choose.
Affiliate tracking
Some of the shops on a comparison are reached through an affiliate network, currently Awin, and we earn a commission when somebody buys after following one of those offers. This is a separate question from analytics and we ask it separately: accepting one has never been an answer to the other.
We load no Awin script and set no Awin cookie on this site. Nothing about you reaches them while you read a page. Only when you follow one of those offers does your browser go to their address, and the link carries a signal saying whether you agreed to affiliate tracking: yes if you accepted it, and no in every other case, including when you have not answered or your answer has expired. Awin sets its own cookies from that point on, and its own notice covers them.
Whatever you choose, following an offer still works and still takes you to the same shop. Refusing costs you nothing but the commission.
Counting outbound clicks
Following an offer goes through an address on this site first, which is where we check the offer is still one we are willing to send you to and where we raise a counter. The counter is kept against the day in UTC, the offer, the merchant and the country edition you were reading, and nothing else: no identifier, no address, no referrer, no browser string. This needs no consent and cannot be switched off, because there is nothing in it to consent about.
Advertising
We do not set advertising or cross-site tracking cookies, and we do not profile you. The advertising and personalisation signals Google Analytics understands are refused on every page and are never turned on by accepting the notice. Placement on this board is bought openly through sponsorship, and every sponsored product says so on its face.
Spam protection
The “tell me when it opens” form is protected by Google reCAPTCHA, which loads a script from Google and may read and set cookies in order to tell a person from a script. It runs only on the two pages that carry that form, we get back a score and nothing else, and it is what stops the form being used to send mail automatically.
Payment
Stripe sets its own cookies during checkout, which it needs for fraud prevention and to complete the payment. They only appear once you reach the payment step, and Stripe’s own policy covers them.
Cookies set by other sites
Following any offer takes you to a site we do not control, sometimes by way of an affiliate network, and that site may set its own cookies. Its cookie policy applies from that point on.
How to control cookies
The banner on your first visit lets you accept or decline anything that is not strictly necessary, and declining is one click, exactly like accepting. Nothing optional is set before you choose.
You can change your mind whenever you like: “Cookie settings” in the footer opens a page showing what you chose, where you can change either answer or withdraw your consent altogether. Withdrawing deletes the record rather than storing a refusal, so the notice asks again on your next visit. Every browser also lets you view, block and delete cookies and local storage in its settings, and blocking strictly necessary cookies will stop parts of the site from working.
Questions
Write to [email protected] if you want to know exactly what is stored for your browser.