Legal
Cookie Policy
What this site stores in your browser, what the Accept and Decline buttons actually change, how long each item lasts, and how to change your mind.
How consent works here
The first time you open a page, a banner at the bottom offers two buttons, Accept and Decline. Your choice is stored in your browser's local storage under the name ybi_consent, with the value "granted" or "denied", so we do not ask again on that device. That storage item is the only thing this site itself ever writes to your browser: we set no cookies of our own, no login cookies and no session cookies.
Before you choose, and if you choose Decline, the advertising consent signal we send to Microsoft is denied. If your browser sends the Global Privacy Control signal, we record "denied" automatically and never show the banner; we treat GPC as a Decline.
You can change your choice at any time. The button below and the "Cookie settings" link in the footer of every page do the same thing: erase the stored choice and reload the page, which brings the banner back.
What Decline actually changes
The Microsoft Advertising UET script is loaded in the head of every page, whatever you choose, with the consent default set to denied right after it. That means a page-load request goes to Microsoft's measurement service on every visit. Your choice controls what that script may do with storage, not whether it runs. Under "denied", Microsoft's documentation states that first-party cookies are neither read nor written, third-party cookies are not written, and any third-party cookie that is read is used only for fraud and spam detection. Under "granted", Microsoft may set and read the identifiers in the table below. We would rather tell you this than describe the tag as "off until you accept", which would not be accurate.
Every cookie and storage item
| Name | Type | Set by | Purpose | How long |
|---|---|---|---|---|
ybi_consent | Local storage (this domain) | This site | Remembers your Accept or Decline choice, or the "denied" we record when your browser sends Global Privacy Control | Until you clear site data or use the button above |
MUID | Cookie (Microsoft domain) | Microsoft Advertising, only after Accept | Microsoft's identifier for your browser, used across Microsoft properties for ad measurement | 13 months (Microsoft's stated expiry for its browser cookie) |
MR | Cookie (Microsoft domain) | Microsoft Advertising, only after Accept | A one-bit flag set when your browser interacts with a Microsoft property, including a UET call | Not stated in Microsoft's UET documentation |
MSPTC | Partitioned cookie | Microsoft Advertising, only after Accept | A pseudonymous visitor ID used with the browser's partitioned-cookie privacy API | Not stated in Microsoft's UET documentation |
_uetsid | Cookie (this domain) | UET tag, only after Accept | Identifies one browsing session on this site | Session-length; Microsoft states no fixed figure (cookie databases report about one day) |
_uetvid | Cookie (this domain) | UET tag, only after Accept | Pseudonymous visitor ID that recognizes a returning browser across visits | Persistent, carries its own expiry time; Microsoft states no fixed figure (cookie databases report about 13 months) |
_uetsid_exp, _uetvid_exp | Local storage (this domain) | UET tag, only after Accept | Hold the expiry time of the matching cookie above, for browsers that shorten cookie lifetimes | Mirrors the matching cookie |
_uetmsclkid | Cookie (this domain) | UET tag, only after Accept, and only if you arrived from a Microsoft ad click | Stores the click ID from the ad so a later visit can be attributed to it | 90 days (Microsoft) |
__cf_bm | Cookie (this domain) | Cloudflare; technical, not gated by the banner | Bot mitigation, set only when Cloudflare's bot-protection features are active for this site | Expires after 30 minutes of inactivity (Cloudflare) |
Where Microsoft's documentation states a lifetime, we quote it; where it does not, we say so rather than guess. Microsoft and Cloudflare can change how these items work without telling us, so treat the table as reported, not fixed.
Categories
- Preference (ours):
ybi_consent. Stores your own choice. It is not gated by the banner because it is the record of your answer to the banner. - Advertising measurement (Microsoft): everything from
MUIDto_uetmsclkid. Stored or read only after you click Accept, subject to the limits described above when consent is denied. - Technical (Cloudflare):
__cf_bm, when Cloudflare's bot protection is active. It serves security, not advertising, and is not gated by the banner.
What is not a cookie
The newsletter form stores nothing in your browser. When you subscribe, your email address, the time and your IP address are written to a private file on our server, not to a cookie; the Privacy Policy describes that mechanism step by step, how long the record is kept, and how to be removed. Our fonts are served from our own domain, so there is no font-service cookie. We do not use Google Analytics or any social-media pixel.
Cookies on Amazon
When you click a product link you leave this site for amazon.com. Amazon sets its own cookies on its own domain, including one that records that you arrived through our affiliate link, which is how our commission is credited, under Amazon's Privacy Notice and its Interest-Based Ads page. We do not set those cookies, cannot read them, and have no control over them.
Browser controls
Beyond the button above, you can block or delete cookies and site data in your browser's settings, and most modern browsers, or a small extension, can send the Global Privacy Control signal for you. Blocking storage entirely will not break this site: the pages, the catalog and the field notes load without any cookie at all. The only effect is that the banner reappears on each visit, because we would have nowhere to remember your answer.
Changes
If we add, remove or change any item in the table, we update this page and the "Last updated" date at the top. A new measurement tool would be added to the table before it went live, not after.
Questions
- Publisher
- Aurora Group Platforms LLC
- Address
- 30 N Gould Street
Sheridan, WY 82801, United States - [email protected]
Sources
- Microsoft Advertising, "Setting up UET for consent mode": the meaning of ad_storage granted and denied, and how advanced consent mode loads the tag before a choice is made. learn.microsoft.com/en-us/advertising/msa-help/hlp_ba_conc_uet_consent
- Microsoft Advertising, "FAQ: Universal event tracking": the list of cookies UET stores or accesses (
MR,MSPTC,MUID,_uetmsclkid,_uetsid,_uetvid), the 90-day click-ID cookie and the 13-month browser cookie. learn.microsoft.com/en-us/advertising/msa-help/hlp_ba_conc_uet_faq_2 - Microsoft Advertising, "FAQ: UET and user consent": naming
MUID,_uetvid,_uetsid,_uetsid_exp,_uetvid_expandMSPTCas the items subject to consent. learn.microsoft.com/en-us/advertising/msa-help/hlp_ba_conc_uet_consentfaq - Cloudflare, "Cloudflare cookies": the
__cf_bmpurpose and its 30-minute inactivity expiry. developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/reference/policies-compliances/cloudflare-cookies - Global Privacy Control: the specification and its legal standing. globalprivacycontrol.org