Notices · cookies
Cookie Notice
The compendium uses a single small cookie, and it uses it only to hand a page to you correctly. This notice explains what that means and what it does not mean.
What a cookie is
A cookie is a small piece of text that a page may ask to have kept beside your reading so as to recognise a later request as part of the same visit. Cookies are neither routines nor pictures; they are short notes, and the note used here is one of the shortest it is possible to write. Nothing takes up residence on your arrangement and nothing is left running when you close the pages.
The single cookie used here
The compendium sets one essential cookie whose only task is to keep a request together with the page it asked for, so that a page is delivered whole rather than in fragments. It carries no name, no identifier and no reading history. It expires when your visit ends, and it never leaves the pages you are reading. There are no analytical cookies, no advertising cookies and no cookies belonging to anyone else.
| Cookie | Purpose | Lifetime |
|---|---|---|
| essential delivery note | hands a page over whole | ends with the visit |
| analytical cookies | none used | not applicable |
| advertising cookies | none used | not applicable |
Declining the cookie
You may decline the cookie in your reading arrangement and the pages will still open, because the compendium asks for nothing that cannot be given at will. Declining may cause the page to be handed over in a slightly different way, but no page will be withheld from you, and no part of the compendium is kept back. This is possible precisely because the cookie is essential only in a narrow, technical sense.
Why no banner to click
Many pages greet a reader with a strip about cookies and ask for a decision before any reading may begin. The compendium chose instead to keep its one cookie to the minimum that makes the pages work, and to describe it here in full. The strip at the foot of every page is a note, not a request, and it asks nothing of you.
What the cookie is not used for
- It is not used to follow you from one visit to the next.
- It is not used to build any picture of a reader.
- It is not used to place anything before you by way of persuasion.
- It is not shared with any outside party.
Further questions
If you wish to understand more about the cookie, or about how the compendium treats reader information more broadly, the privacy policy explains the same position at greater length. Questions may also be sent by mail to the desk, which replies during its open hours and is glad to explain a technical point in plain words.
How to think about the one note kept
The clearest way to think about the compendium's cookie is to compare it with a coat check. A short slip is handed over so that the same coat may be returned to the same hand, and the slip says nothing about the coat and nothing about the person. The compendium's note works the same way. It exists only so that a page reaches the reader whole, and it carries no description of the reader and no history of the reading.
Because the note is so small, the compendium can describe it completely on this page rather than asking a reader to weigh a choice. A reader who understands what the note does may keep it or set it aside, and the pages will open either way. That simplicity is the whole aim of the notice, and it is why the compendium offers a short paragraph rather than a panel of choices.