LEGAL

Cookie Policy

Necessary storage only, and nothing that follows you about.

What a cookie is

A cookie is a very small piece of information that a site asks a browser to keep and to return on a later visit. Cookies are neither good nor bad in themselves; everything depends on what they carry and who can read them. This reference uses the narrowest kind, and it explains that use here so that a reader need not wonder about it.

Necessary storage

The pages of this reference may place a small amount of necessary storage in your browser so that the pages behave as expected between visits. Necessary storage supports the ordinary functioning of the site: it keeps the display steady, remembers nothing that identifies you, and carries no preference that could be traced back to you. Without it, some pages would simply be less convenient to read, and none would work differently in any material way.

What is not used

This reference uses no advertising cookies, no measurement cookies and no social cookies. It runs no third-party element of any kind, places no tracker from another domain, and builds no profile of a reader. It does not follow you to other sites, and it could not do so even if it wished, since it carries nothing from outside its own pages.

Your control

You remain in control of storage in your browser. Every common browser allows you to view, block or remove stored items, and the help pages of your browser explain how. Blocking the necessary storage described above may make one or two pages slightly less pleasant to read, but it will not lock you out of the reference, because no page depends on it for its content.

Consent

Because only necessary storage is used, no consent prompt is required, and none is shown. The desk takes the view that a banner asking permission for storage that a page needs in order to function is a needless interruption. Instead, a short line at the top of each page states plainly what is used and points to this policy, so that a reader who cares to know can find out at once.

Retention

Whatever necessary storage is placed is short-lived or harmless. It expires quickly, or it carries a value so trivial that its retention cannot affect your privacy. The desk keeps no record of a visit on its own side of a visit, and it has no way to connect one visit with another.

Questions

If anything on this page is unclear, please write to the desk through the contact page. The related pages are the Privacy Policy and the Terms of Use, and a reader who wishes to understand the boundaries of the reference as a whole may also

A closing note

Storage is a small matter, but the desk takes the view that small matters deserve a plain answer. This page is the whole answer: necessary storage only, nothing that follows a reader, and nothing kept on the desk side. A reader who reads no further than that sentence has understood the policy.