Cookies & Tracking
Version 1.0 — 2 August 2026.
This notice sets out every category of cookie and similar technology used on universalassetowners.com, who sets it, what it does, and how long it lasts. It sits underneath our Privacy Policy; the controls are in Your Privacy Choices.
What a cookie actually is
A cookie is a small text file a site asks your browser to store and send back on your next request. It is how a website recognises that two page views came from the same browser. Local storage, session storage, pixels, web beacons and SDK identifiers do the same job by different means. Where this notice says "cookie", it means all of them.
The four categories we use
1. Strictly necessary — always on
These make the site work. They cannot be switched off through a consent tool because without them the site does not function, and no privacy law requires consent for them.
| Cookie | Set by | Purpose | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
ghost-members-ssrghost-members-ssr.sig | Us (first party) | Keeps you signed in to your member account and verifies that the session has not been tampered with | 6 months |
__cfduid / __cf_bm and equivalents | Our infrastructure provider | Distinguishes real readers from automated traffic; rate limiting and abuse prevention | Up to 30 minutes / session |
| Consent record | Us / our consent platform | Remembers the choices you made, so we do not ask you on every page | 12 months |
2. Analytics — consent required in the EEA, UK and Switzerland
These tell us which articles are read, how far down the page people get, and where readers arrive from. We use them to decide what to cover, not to build a profile of you as an individual.
| Cookie | Set by | Purpose | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
_ga | Google Analytics | Distinguishes one browser from another for readership measurement | 24 months |
_ga_ZRS5B4BPJS | Google Analytics | Holds the session state for our specific property | 24 months |
| Email open pixel | Our newsletter platform | Records that an email was opened and which links were clicked | Not stored on your device |
| First-touch and campaign attribution | Us (first party) | Records which campaign or referral first brought you to the site, so we know which work is landing | 12 months |
Our Google Analytics property is configured with IP anonymisation on, Google Signals off, advertising personalisation off, and event-level data retention set to 14 months.
3. Advertising — consent required in the EEA, UK and Switzerland; opt-out available everywhere
These select which advertisements you see, stop you being shown the same one twenty times, and tell an advertiser how a campaign performed. They are set by third parties, not by us, and those parties are independent controllers of the data they collect. Advertising is what keeps the daily brief free.
| Cookie | Set by | Purpose | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
__gads, __gpi | Google AdSense / Ad Manager | Ad selection, frequency capping and measurement | Up to 13 months |
IDE, test_cookie | Google (doubleclick.net) | Measures and reports on ad interactions; checks whether cookies can be set at all | Up to 13 months / 15 minutes |
| Monumetric and its demand partners | Monumetric (The Blogger Network, LLC) | Ad placement, demand management and measurement. See its Publisher Advertising Privacy notice | Varies by partner, typically 30 days to 24 months |
| MailAdx ad-server identifiers | MailAdx | Fills web and newsletter advertising slots; counts impressions and clicks | Up to 12 months |
Because ad demand is filled programmatically, the exact set of third-party vendors present on any given page view varies. Once our consent management platform is live, the complete, current vendor list will be shown to you inside the consent tool before you are asked to consent — which is what the IAB Europe Transparency and Consent Framework requires and what we intend to give you.
4. Embedded media
Articles carry embedded audio, video and chart content from our podcast host, our video host and our data providers. When you play an embed, that provider sets its own cookies and receives your IP address and user agent. Nothing is sent to them until you interact with the embed, other than the request that loads the player itself.
What we do not do
- We do not use fingerprinting to identify you when you have refused cookies.
- We do not use hashed email addresses as an advertising identifier, and we do not upload our subscriber list to any advertising platform.
- We do not set advertising cookies on the sign-in, account, or privacy pages.
- We do not use cookie walls. Refusing non-essential cookies does not lock you out of anything on this site.
Your controls
The consolidated controls — including the sale-and-sharing opt-out and Global Privacy Control — are on Your Privacy Choices. In addition:
- Google advertising: Google Ads Settings and My Ad Center.
- Industry opt-outs: Digital Advertising Alliance, Network Advertising Initiative, Your Online Choices (Europe), AdChoices Canada.
- Your browser: every major browser lets you block or delete cookies, and several block third-party cookies by default. Blocking strictly necessary cookies will sign you out and may break parts of the site.
- Analytics: the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on blocks measurement across every site that uses it.
- Email: turn off automatic image loading in your mail client and the open pixel will not fire.
Opting out of personalised advertising does not remove advertising. It makes the advertising you see less relevant and, for us, less valuable. That is a trade we accept.
Questions
Write to info@universalassetowners.com with "Cookies" in the subject line.
See also: Privacy Policy · Your Privacy Choices · Terms of Use