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Cookie Policy

What a cookie is

A cookie is a small text file that a website asks your browser to store and to send back with later requests. Most of ours contain a random string and nothing else. That string lets the site recognise the same browser twice, so it can remember a setting you chose or count one reader once rather than fifty times.

On its own a cookie says nothing about who you are. Joined with records held by companies whose business is joining records, it can say a great deal, and that is why this page exists. Two relatives of the cookie are treated the same way here: local storage, which holds a little more data on your device, and pixels, which are tiny images or scripts whose only job is to register that a page or an ad was loaded.

Cookies Budgy App sets itself

We set a handful of first-party cookies, meaning cookies under the budgyapp.com domain that only we can read. None of them is used to show you advertising based on your interests, and none is shared with anyone.

  • A preference cookie that remembers choices such as your consent settings and your preferred section, so the site does not ask you again on every page.
  • A session cookie that keeps the site working as you move between pages.
  • An analytics cookie that lets our measurement tool tell a returning browser from a new one. It holds a random identifier, not your name, and the tool is configured not to build a profile of you.
  • A security cookie used to tell human visitors from bot traffic when the site is under load or attack.

Cookies set by others

Display advertising on this site is served through the Adsterra network. When a banner loads, the network may set a cookie under its own domain and may read that cookie on other sites that use the same network. This is how interest-based advertising works, and it is the only part of this site’s cookie use that involves tracking across sites.

Embedded content, such as a video player, a match highlights clip or a social media post that is itself part of a story, may also set cookies from the service that hosts it. We embed such content only when it is part of the story. We do not control what those companies do with the cookies they set; their own policies apply. What we control is whether the code that sets them loads at all, and where the law requires your consent first, it does not load until you give it.

The four categories

Where a consent banner appears, it sorts cookies into categories, and it is worth knowing what each one means before you choose.

  • Strictly necessary: the site does not work without them. Session and security cookies fall here. They cannot be switched off through the banner, though you can block them in your browser at the cost of some site functions.
  • Preferences: they remember settings you chose. Turning them off means the site forgets your choices between visits.
  • Analytics: they let us count readers and see which stories are read. Turning them off does not stop the site working; it makes our counts less accurate.
  • Advertising: they let the network select banners based on your browsing and measure whether they were seen. Turning them off does not remove ads; it makes them generic.

Consent in different countries

Our readers are everywhere, and the rules on cookie consent are not the same everywhere. In the European Union and the United Kingdom, non-essential cookies need your consent before they are set, and the banner you see there asks for it. In parts of the United States, including California, the law focuses on your right to opt out of the sharing of information for advertising, and the controls we offer let you do that.

Rather than build a different site for each place, we apply the stricter approach wherever we reasonably can. If you are shown a consent banner, your choice is respected for the whole site. If you are not, the controls in this page and in your browser still work.

How to refuse or remove cookies

If a consent banner is shown to you, its settings control every non-essential cookie on the site, and you can reopen it from the link in the footer at any time. Every major browser also lets you view, delete and block cookies, either for all sites or for particular ones, and lets you clear local storage. The browser’s own help pages explain where the controls are, because they move between versions.

We honour the Global Privacy Control signal, which recent browsers and extensions can send automatically. When we receive it, we treat it as a refusal of advertising and analytics cookies without your having to open the banner. Blocking all cookies will make some parts of the site behave oddly: the banner will reappear and embedded content may not load. Reading articles will still work, because reading is what the site is for.

How long they last

Session cookies expire when you close the browser. Our preference and analytics cookies last for months, so that a reader who returns for the next tournament, the next launch or the next election is not treated as a stranger. Third-party advertising cookies have lifetimes set by the network that placed them, typically from days to a little over a year. Any cookie can be deleted at any time through your browser.

Changes and questions

If we add a category of cookie, change a provider or begin using cookies for a purpose not described here, this page is updated first and the consent banner is reset so you are asked again. Questions about cookies go to support@budgyapp.com with PRIVACY in the subject line. We answer them.

Last updated: September 2026