What a cookie is
A cookie is a short text record that a website asks your browser to keep and to send back with every later request to the same site. It is how a site remembers that you are signed in, that you dismissed a banner, or that you prefer one language over another. Cookies set by the site you are visiting are called first-party; cookies set by a different company whose code runs on the page, such as an advertising network, are third-party. A cookie can last only until you close the browser, or for a fixed period written into it, anything from a few minutes to two years.
Browsers also offer local storage, which is similar in effect but is never sent to the server automatically. We use local storage rather than a cookie for your consent choice, which means that choice stays on your device and we do not see it. Both cookies and local storage are covered by this policy because the rules that govern them are the same.
This policy is about the public website at guestspy.com. The parent panel sets its own session cookie once you sign in, and the child app sets no cookies at all, because it is not a web page. The privacy policy covers what the app and the panel collect.
Everything this site sets
Operated by GuestSpy, the website sets the following. If a cookie is not in this table it is not set by us, and we would like to know about it.
| Name | Set by | Purpose | Duration | Needs consent? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
guestspy_consent | This site, in local storage | Remembers whether you accepted or declined personalised advertising in the consent banner, so the banner does not appear on every page. The value is one short word and nothing else. | Until you clear site data or change your choice from the footer link. | No. It records the consent itself and is strictly necessary. |
wordpress_logged_in_*, wordpress_sec_* | WordPress, first-party | Keeps a member of our staff signed in to the editing side of the site. Set only after signing in at the admin screen; an ordinary visitor never receives these. | Session, or 14 days if "Remember me" was ticked. | No. Strictly necessary for the person signed in. |
wordpress_test_cookie | WordPress, first-party | Checks that the browser accepts cookies before showing the staff sign-in form. | Session. | No. |
wp-settings-*, wp-settings-time-* | WordPress, first-party | Remembers editing-screen layout preferences for a signed-in staff member. | One year. | No. Staff only. |
comment_author_*, comment_author_email_* | WordPress, first-party | If comments are ever enabled on a guide, remembers the name and email you typed so you need not retype them. Set only when you submit a comment. | About one year. | Set only on your own action when posting a comment. |
__gads, __gpi, IDE, test_cookie, DSID | Google AdSense and DoubleClick, third-party (google.com, doubleclick.net) | Serve adverts on the guide pages, limit how often you see the same advert, measure whether it was shown, and, with consent, choose adverts based on your interests across other sites. | From 15 minutes (test_cookie) to 13 months (__gads, __gpi); IDE is typically 13 months. | Yes, for personalised advertising. Non-personalised advertising uses a reduced set and no cross-site profile. |
| Analytics cookies | None at present | We measure page views from our own server logs and do not run a third-party analytics script. If one is added, it will be named here before it goes live and gated by the same banner. | Not applicable. | Would be, if ever added. |
The AdSense rows apply only when a publisher account has been connected to the site and a page is one that carries adverts. The feature pages, the download page, the parent panel pages and all legal pages carry no adverts and therefore load none of these third-party cookies regardless of your choice. Google publishes its own list of the cookies its advertising products use and how long each lasts; the names above are the ones in use at the date on this page.
Advertising cookies and consent
The guides on this site are free to read and are paid for in part by adverts. We would rather carry a few adverts than put the guides behind a sign-up wall or sell anything collected by the app, which we never do. There are two ways an advert can be chosen. A non-personalised advert is picked using only the page you are on, rough location from the IP address, and the device type; it does not depend on anything known about you from other sites. A personalised advert uses a profile built from your browsing across many sites that carry Google adverts.
In the United Kingdom, the European Economic Area, Switzerland and a growing number of other places, personalised adverts may only be shown with your agreement. The first time you open a guide page from one of those regions you will see a consent banner. It asks a single question and offers a plain yes or no, with no pre-ticked boxes and no "accept all" button that is larger than the alternative. If you decline, the page still loads, the guide still reads in full, and any advert shown is non-personalised. We do not nag you with the banner again unless you clear your browser's site data.
Your answer is stored as the single key guestspy_consent in your browser's local storage. It is read by a short script on the page that decides whether to ask Google for personalised or non-personalised adverts. It is never sent to our server, and so we have no record of who chose what; the choice lives on your device and is yours to change.
How to withdraw or change your choice
Every page of the site has a "Cookie choices" link in the footer. Selecting it brings the consent banner back with your current answer shown, and you can switch it. The change takes effect on the next page you load. If you would rather remove the record entirely, clearing site data for guestspy.com in your browser deletes the key and the banner will appear again on your next visit as though you were new.
Withdrawing consent here stops personalised adverts on this site. It does not by itself remove the profile Google may hold about you from other sites. For that, the controls are on Google's side: https://www.google.com/settings/ads lets you turn off ad personalisation across Google's services, and https://www.aboutads.info/choices/ runs an opt-out across many advertising companies at once. Both work by setting an opt-out cookie, so if you clear cookies you will need to repeat them.
Controlling cookies in your browser
Every modern browser lets you see which cookies a site has set, delete them one at a time or all together, and block cookies from particular sites or from all third parties. The setting is usually under Privacy or Site settings. Blocking all third-party cookies is a reasonable default and does not break this site: the guides, the feature pages and the download page work without any third-party cookie. Blocking first-party cookies as well will prevent staff from signing in to the editing side, which does not affect you unless you are one of them, and will stop your consent choice being remembered, so the banner will show on every page.
Browsers also offer a private or incognito window in which cookies and local storage are discarded when the window closes. Reading a guide in a private window means you will see the consent banner each time, but nothing is kept between visits.
A small number of corporate or school networks strip cookies or inject their own at the proxy. If you see a cookie on this site that is not in the table above, it has most likely come from such a proxy or from a browser extension rather than from us; we would still like to hear about it so we can check.
Cookies in the parent panel
The panel is a separate application from this website and sets one session cookie when a parent signs in. It is strictly necessary, carries no advertising and expires when the session is signed out from the Security page or after a period of inactivity. If two-factor authentication is on, a second short-lived cookie remembers that this browser passed the code check, so you are not asked for a code on every page. Neither cookie is used for anything other than keeping you signed in, and neither is shared with any third party.
Changes to this policy
If we add a cookie, change a duration or connect a new third-party service, this page will be updated before the change goes live and the date at the top will move. We do not add analytics or advertising cookies silently. A change that would require fresh consent will reset the banner so that you are asked again.
Contact
Questions about cookies or the consent banner can be sent to [email protected]. For anything else about the site or the service, [email protected] is the right address. Write to GuestSpy if you prefer post.