Legal
Cookie Policy
What this site stores in your browser, what happens when you click Accept or Decline, and how to change your mind. This page describes the mechanism as it is actually built.
The short version
This site stores one thing of its own in your browser: your cookie choice. One advertising tag, Microsoft Advertising's UET, is present on every page and is switched on only if you click Accept. Cloudflare, the network service in front of our server, may set a short-lived technical cookie. There is nothing else: no analytics, no social plug-ins, no embedded players, no third-party fonts.
How the banner works, step by step
First visit
Our page looks in your browser's local storage for an item named
fsl_consent. If it is not there, the banner is shown. Local storage is a small per-site store in your browser; it is not a cookie and is never sent to our server.Before you choose
Microsoft's UET script has already been requested from bat.bing.net, and our page has already told it that advertising storage is denied. Nothing you do on the banner is needed for that; denied is the starting state on every page.
If you click Accept
We store
fsl_consent=grantedand tell the script that advertising storage is granted. On every later page you open from that browser, the stored value is read and the same "granted" signal is sent, so you are asked once, not on every page.If you click Decline
We store
fsl_consent=deniedand the script stays in its denied state. On later pages the stored value simply means the banner is not shown again; the denied default does the rest.If your browser sends Global Privacy Control
When there is no stored choice and your browser exposes the GPC signal, we store
deniedfor you and never show the banner. If a choice was already stored on that device, the stored choice wins; clear it (next step) and GPC applies from then on. While GPC is on, clearing your choice always lands on Decline, because we read the signal again on the next page.Changing your mind
The "Cookie settings" button in the footer of every page, and the button at the top of this page, delete
fsl_consentand reload the page, so the banner appears again and you can choose afresh. Clearing this site's data in your browser does the same.
Being precise about what Decline changes
A script from Microsoft Advertising is loaded on every page of this site regardless of your choice, so a network request to Microsoft's server happens on every page view, and that request carries your IP address and browser description like any web request. What your choice changes is what the script is allowed to do. Microsoft's own consent-mode documentation states that when advertising storage is denied, first-party cookies are not read or written for UET, third-party cookies are not written, and third-party cookies are read only for fraud and spam purposes, not for advertising; Microsoft describes the data collected in that state as anonymized and aggregated. This is the setup Microsoft calls "advanced" consent mode, in which the tag loads immediately with consent denied by default and is only switched to granted by your click. We would rather tell you that than claim the tag is "off until you accept", because the file itself still loads.
Everything this site can place in your browser
| Name | Type | Set by | Purpose | How long |
|---|---|---|---|---|
fsl_consent | Local storage (first-party) | This site | Remembers your Accept or Decline choice as the word "granted" or "denied" | Until you clear site data or use "Cookie settings" |
MUID, MSPTC | Cookies (third-party, bing.com) | Microsoft Advertising, only after Accept | Microsoft's own browser identifiers, used to recognize the same browser across sites for advertising measurement and audiences | Set by Microsoft; see the cookie's expiry in your browser |
_uetsid, _uetvid | Cookies (first-party, on this domain) | Microsoft's UET tag, only after Accept | A session identifier and a visitor identifier, used to attribute a visit to a Microsoft Advertising ad | Set by the tag; see the cookie's expiry in your browser |
_uetsid_exp, _uetvid_exp | Local storage | Microsoft's UET tag, only after Accept | Store the expiry times of the two cookies above | Mirrors the matching cookie |
__cf_bm | Cookie (technical, not gated by the banner) | Cloudflare | Bot management: helps tell automated traffic from real visitors so the site stays available | Expires after 30 minutes of inactivity, per Cloudflare |
The Microsoft items are the identifiers Microsoft's own documentation names as subject to consent. Microsoft does not state their lifetimes in the consent documents we checked, so rather than guess we point you to your browser's storage inspector, where each cookie shows its expiry date. Microsoft can change how these work without telling us; if we learn of a change, this table changes with it. Cloudflare may also set other technical cookies described on its cookie page, depending on how a request is handled; none of them is used for advertising.
Categories
- Strictly necessary or technical:
__cf_bmand any other Cloudflare technical cookie. Not gated by the banner because they exist to keep the site up and are not used to follow you across sites. - Preference:
fsl_consent. Your own choice, stored so we can respect it. - Advertising measurement: the Microsoft items. Only set or read after you click Accept, subject to the denied-state limits described above.
What the newsletter form does not do
Subscribing to The Sunday Plan does not set a cookie or change your advertising choice. The form sends your email address to our server once, where it is stored as described in the Privacy Policy, and that is the end of it.
Browser controls
Your browser can block or delete cookies and local storage for this site or for every site, and several browsers and extensions can send the Global Privacy Control signal for you. Blocking cookies does not stop this site from working; the content is plain pages. If you block local storage, we cannot remember your choice, so the banner appears on every page; the tag stays in its denied state unless you click Accept, and an Accept then counts only for that one page view, because nothing can be stored. Microsoft's Privacy Statement also offers its own opt-out for personalized advertising across Microsoft's services.
Changes
If we add or remove anything that touches your browser, this page and its table change first, with a new date at the top.
Questions
- Publisher
- Aurora Group Platforms LLC
- Address
- 30 N Gould Street
Sheridan, WY 82801, United States - [email protected]
Sources
- Microsoft Advertising, "Setting up UET for consent mode": the "granted" and "denied" definitions, and the description of advanced consent mode (tag loads immediately with consent denied by default). learn.microsoft.com/en-us/advertising/msa-help/hlp_ba_conc_uet_consent
- Microsoft Advertising, "FAQ - UET and user consent": the identifiers subject to consent,
MUID,_uetvid,_uetsid,_uetsid_exp,_uetvid_expandMSPTC. learn.microsoft.com/en-us/advertising/msa-help/hlp_ba_conc_uet_consentfaq - Microsoft Privacy Statement, including Microsoft's own advertising opt-out. microsoft.com/en-us/privacy/privacystatement
- Cloudflare, "Cloudflare Cookies":
__cf_bmand its 30-minute inactivity expiry. developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/reference/policies-compliances/cloudflare-cookies - Global Privacy Control. globalprivacycontrol.org