1. What cookies are
A cookie is a small text file that a website asks your browser to store, and that your browser sends back on later requests. Related technologies — local storage and session storage — work similarly but keep data in the browser without sending it to a server. This policy covers all of them, and we treat them under the same consent rules.
2. Our approach
We use as little as we can get away with. This website has no advertising network, no social media embeds, no retargeting pixels and no third-party trackers of any kind. The only external requests a page makes are for two typefaces, described in section 5.
Under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, storage that is strictly necessary to deliver a service you asked for does not need consent. Everything else does, and we ask for it before storing anything.
3. Strictly necessary — no consent required
| Name | Type | Purpose | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| meridianreview.sid | First-party cookie | Keeps a request session together and protects the contact form against forged submissions from other origins. Contains a random identifier and nothing else. | Session — deleted when you close the browser |
| meridianreview.consent.v1 | Local storage | Records whether you accepted or rejected non-essential storage, and when. Required so that we can honour your choice and evidence that we asked. Stored in your own browser; never transmitted to us. | 12 months, or until you clear your browser storage |
4. Optional — only if you accept
If you choose "Accept all", we may enable privacy-respecting readership measurement so that we know which reviews are being read and therefore which need updating first. It records page addresses and aggregate counts. It does not build a profile of you, does not follow you to other websites and does not share anything with an advertising network.
| Name | Type | Purpose | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| lw_stats | First-party cookie | Distinguishes one reading session from the next so that a single visit is not counted many times. No identifier that can be linked back to you. | Up to 12 months |
If you choose "Reject non-essential", none of the above is set. The website works identically either way — no content is withheld, no feature is disabled, and we do not ask again unless you reopen the notice yourself.
Note on the current build: this deployment loads no measurement script at all. The row above is published in advance so that the policy is accurate on the day measurement is switched on, rather than after it.
5. Third-party requests
Two typefaces are requested from Google Fonts (fonts.googleapis.com and fonts.gstatic.com) when a page loads. Google Fonts does not set cookies for font delivery, but the request itself reveals your IP address to Google as a technical necessity of any web request. Google publishes its own privacy policy. If you would rather avoid this entirely, a content blocker will stop the request and the website will fall back to a typeface already on your device.
No other external origin is contacted. Our Content Security Policy actively blocks any attempt to load a script, frame or image from anywhere else.
6. When you follow a link to an operator
Outbound brand links leave this website. Once you arrive at an operator's own address, that operator sets its own cookies under its own policy, and we have no control over and no visibility of them. Read the operator's cookie and privacy policies before opening an account.
7. Managing cookies in your browser
You can delete or block cookies at any time in your browser settings, independently of the choice you make here. Blocking the strictly necessary cookie may stop the contact form from submitting; nothing else on this website will break.
8. Changes
If we add or remove anything, this page changes first and the date at the top changes with it. Where a change means we need consent we do not already hold, the notice will reappear and ask for it.
9. Contact
Questions about this policy: privacy@meridianreview.co.uk. How personal data is handled more generally is covered in the Privacy Policy.