Cookie Policy
1. Introduction
This Cookie Policy explains what A Cup of Crime stores on your device when you visit, why, and how to control it.
A Cup of Crime keeps its own tracking to a minimum. It runs no advertising and no social-media pixel, and it sets no cookie of its own. It measures how the Site is read with Google Analytics, which does set cookies, and that tool stays switched off until you allow it through the notice that appears at the bottom of the page. Everything else the Site stores lives in local storage on your own device, described below.
This policy supplements the Privacy Policy and should be read alongside it.
2. Cookies versus local storage — what the difference is
A cookie is a small file a website asks your browser to store and send back on later visits. Local storage is a more modern feature that lets a website store data directly on your device, where it stays until you clear it.
Until you allow analytics, the Site sets no cookies at all, and it never sets advertising or preference cookies. Most of what follows is therefore about local storage: your votes, and your answer to the Analytics notice.
3. What the Site stores on your device
3.1 Your votes
When you rate a review with stars, or call its verdict fair or unfair, the Site stores a tiny marker on your device (for example acoc_vote_show_endeavour). It does this so your chosen stars stay lit and your verdict stays highlighted when you come back to the page. It is, in effect, a “you already voted this way” reminder, held entirely on your machine.
3.2 Your answer to the notice
When you allow or refuse analytics, that answer is stored on your device under acoc_consent. The Site reads it on each visit so the notice does not appear again, and so Google Analytics knows whether it may start. The stored value is the word granted or the word denied, and nothing else.
3.3 Analytics cookies, where you allow them
Two cookies come from Google Analytics:
_ga, which holds a randomly generated identifier so the tool can tell one visitor from another. It lasts up to two years unless you clear it._ga_X5V4EWHQTN, which ties this Site’s measurements to that identifier. It lasts up to two years unless you clear it.
If you refuse analytics, neither cookie is set and no request is made to Google.
What Google receives when the tool runs: the pages you view here, the address of the page that sent you here, an approximate location worked out from your IP address, your device, browser and screen size, and the two identifiers above. The Site sends nothing else. Google’s privacy policy governs what Google then does with it. This Site’s measurement ID is G-X5V4EWHQTN.
4. What the Site collects on its server
The only data the Site’s server holds from your visit is a salted, one-way hash of your IP address, recorded when you cast a vote so the tallies cannot be inflated (details in the Privacy Policy). That is not stored on your device and is not a cookie. If you allow analytics, Google also receives the measurement data described in section 3.3. The Site’s own server still records nothing beyond the vote hash.
5. Third-party requests
The Site serves its own fonts, so viewing a page makes no font request to Google.
The only third-party request the Site can make is for the Google Analytics script, and it is made only when you allow analytics. Google’s handling of that data is governed by Google’s own privacy policy at policies.google.com/privacy, not by this one. Google also publishes a browser add-on that blocks its analytics on every site, at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
6. Managing and clearing site data
The Site’s own storage all lives on your own device, so clearing it is straightforward and harmless. You will simply need to re-enter a vote and answer the Analytics notice again.
Every browser lets you clear site data:
- Google Chrome: Settings → Privacy and security → Cookies and other site data.
- Mozilla Firefox: Settings → Privacy & Security → Cookies and Site Data.
- Microsoft Edge: Settings → Cookies and site permissions → Cookies and site data.
- Safari: Preferences → Privacy → Manage Website Data.
You can also open your browser’s developer tools and remove storage for a specific site, or browse in a private window so nothing persists once you close it.
If you allowed analytics and want to change that, use Cookie settings in the footer. It reopens the notice, and refusing there stops the tool, removes the analytics cookies it had set, and leaves your votes untouched. There is no targeted advertising on the Site to decline.
7. Do Not Track
The Site does not follow you around the web itself. The analytics tool, when you allow it, recognises a returning visitor through its own cookie and connects that visit to what Google already holds about your browser, which is why it waits for an explicit yes instead of starting on its own. The Site does nothing different in response to a browser “Do Not Track” signal; refusing analytics is the control that matters here.
8. Changes to this policy
This policy was rewritten on October 5, 2026, when Google Analytics and the consent notice were added. It now says what the tool sets, what it sends, and how to refuse it or change your mind. If the Site ever introduces another cookie or third-party tool, this page will be updated in the same way, with a new last updated date.
9. Contact
David O’Connell
A Cup of Crime
Email: david@acupofcrime.com
Phone: (631) 956 4581
10. Related policy
The Privacy Policy explains more about the limited information the Site holds and how you can exercise your rights over it.