Cookie Policy
The short list
There is no consent banner on this site. That is not an oversight, and this page is the explanation.
The short version
- No tracking cookies. No advertising cookies. No analytics. None at all, not a reduced set.
- The only cookies here are the ones that sign you in and keep you signed in.
- One preference, your light or dark setting, is kept in your own browser and never sent to us.
- Strictly necessary cookies do not require consent, which is why you are reading a page instead of dismissing a banner.
IWhat is actually set
Two kinds of cookie, both of them doing the same job: getting you into your own library and keeping you there for the rest of the session.
| Kind | What it does | How long |
|---|---|---|
| Session | Records that you signed in successfully. Without it the library does not open, because there is no way to tell it is you. | The session, typically up to 24 hours |
| Sign-in security | Protects the sign-in itself, so the act of logging you in cannot be forged by another site or replayed somewhere else. | The session |
That is the complete list. Nothing here follows you between sites, nothing is shared with anyone for advertising, and nothing survives beyond the session except the one preference below.
Sign-in is handled for us by a specialist provider rather than built from scratch, which is the ordinary and safer choice for authentication. The exact cookie names come from whichever provider is in use and can change if we move; what they are for does not.
IIThe one thing that is not a cookie
Your theme choice, light or dark, is kept in your browser's local storage under a single key. It stays on your device, it is never sent to the server, and clearing your site data forgets it. We mention it because a policy that says "no cookies" while quietly writing to local storage is being clever with words rather than honest.
IIIWhy there is no banner
Consent requirements apply to cookies that are not strictly necessary: analytics, advertising, personalisation, anything that follows you. We do not set any. What is left exists to sign you in and keep the session safe, which is the textbook definition of strictly necessary, and asking permission to log you in would be theatre.
If we ever add something that is not strictly necessary, you will get a real choice before it is set, and refusing will actually work.
IVOther people's servers
Some parts of a web page are served by specialist providers rather than by us: fonts are the usual example. When your browser fetches one it makes an ordinary request, and the provider sees that a request was made and from which network address. No cookie is set by this, and nothing about what you read is included.
Book covers are deliberately not like this. We fetch each cover once and then serve our own copy, so reading your shelf does not tell anyone else which books are on it. That costs us storage and saves you a running commentary on your reading, which seemed the right way round.
VRefusing them anyway
Every browser lets you block or delete cookies. Blocking the ones above will stop you signing in, because they are the sign-in. Deleting them signs you out, which is a fine way to end a session on a shared computer.
There is no tracking here to opt out of, so a Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control signal has nothing to change. We honour them by having nothing for them to switch off.
VIContact
Anphase Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand.
privacy@writingread.com
Last updated 30 August 2026 · Effective 30 August 2026