The short version
Nothing that tracks you runs on this site until you say yes. The banner on your first visit is the whole mechanism: decline and neither the analytics nor the session recording ever loads, accept and they do. The site works the same either way, and you can change your mind whenever you like.
What this policy covers
Cookies and similar storage used on thebloomvibes.com, by us and by the handful of services we rely on. It does not cover other sites we link to, including The Poets Cafe, which keep their own policies.
What a cookie is
A cookie is a small text file a site asks your browser to keep. It lets the site recognise the same browser from one page to the next, which is how a site remembers a preference instead of asking you again on every click.
Most cookies are dull housekeeping. The ones worth thinking about are the ones that watch what you do, and those are the ones this site asks permission for.
What a tracking pixel is
A tracking pixel is a tiny invisible image, or a fragment of script, that reports back when a page is opened. Advertisers use them to follow people between sites and measure which advert led to which visit.
There is no advertising pixel here, from us or from anyone else, and nothing on this site follows you onto another one. If you accept the banner, Microsoft Clarity does request an invisible image of this kind as part of making its recording. It reports to Microsoft, not to an advertiser, and like everything else in the statistics group it does not load at all if you decline.
What is actually set
One thing always, and five more only if you agree. Cookiebot stores your answer to the banner so we do not have to ask again on every page. With your consent, Google Analytics sets two cookies that let it tell a returning visitor from a new one and follow a single visit while it is happening, and Microsoft Clarity sets two more, plus one entry that lives only until you close the tab, to keep a recording together and recognise the same browser next time. All of them hold a randomly generated number, not your name or your email address.
The full list is below: every cookie, who sets it, what it is for and how long it lasts. Six entries is a list we can keep honest by hand, the durations were read off the running site rather than copied from a vendor page, and the date underneath says when that was last done.
Why we use them at all
To keep your answer to the banner, which is housekeeping and cannot be switched off without making the banner ask forever. To count visits, so we have some idea how many people find the site and which pages they read. And to record how a page was used, so that when something is confusing we can watch it happen instead of guessing. That is the entire list.
Not for advertising. We do not run adverts, we do not buy them against your behaviour on this site, and nothing here helps anyone else target you.
Changing your answer
Cookie settings, at the bottom of any page, reopens the banner so you can choose again. Declining after having accepted stops both the analytics and the recording immediately, and clearing this site’s cookies in your browser removes what was already set.
Google also publishes a browser add-on that opts you out of Analytics on every site at once, if you would rather decide once than site by site.
Controlling cookies yourself
Every browser can block or delete cookies for a single site, usually from the padlock in the address bar, and allaboutcookies.org walks through it for each browser. Blocking everything here stops the analytics and the recording, and makes the banner reappear on each visit, because the answer it would remember is itself a cookie. Nothing else on the site breaks, and you can still enquire, subscribe, call, or come and see the place.
Asking us about your consent
Email [email protected]. If you are asking about a consent you gave, open Cookie settings first and quote the consent ID and date it shows you, which is what lets us find the right record.
Changes
If we ever add something that sets a cookie, it goes into the banner and appears in the table above before it goes live. The date at the top of this page is the last time the writing changed; the table carries the date it was last checked.