Cookie Policy
Last updated: 22 August 2026
The short version
Two cookies are needed for this site to work at all. Everything else is optional, nothing optional loads until you say yes, and saying no is a complete answer that we will not ask you to reconsider on your next visit.
We do not run advertising cookies, we do not sell or share your data with data brokers, and there is no third-party ad network anywhere on this site. We do not record your session: the site ran Microsoft Clarity until 22 August 2026 and it has been removed.
Change your mind at any time. This is the same panel as the banner.
Why some things need no permission
The rule bites on storing something on your device, or reading something already there. Our own visit counter does neither: no cookie, nothing written to browser storage. So there is nothing for you to consent to, and no switch for it below. That is a different reason from the two strictly necessary cookies, which are exempt because the site cannot work without them, and we have listed them separately rather than filing both under one comfortable heading.
Why you get asked
Under the EU ePrivacy rules and the GDPR, anything stored on or read from your device that is not strictly necessary needs your permission first. Not permission afterwards, and not permission assumed from you continuing to scroll. So the optional scripts on this site are not merely told to behave until you agree, they are not sent to your browser at all. If you refuse, or simply never answer, the requests to Google, Microsoft and Ahrefs never happen.
If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, we take that as a no and do not show you the banner. You can still opt in deliberately using the button above, and that choice will override the signal.
What can be set
Strictly necessaryNo switch
These remember the choice you make below, and keep an administrator signed in to the private part of this site. They set no identifier that follows you anywhere, they are never read by anyone but us, and the site cannot honour your cookie choice without them. Under the ePrivacy rules these are exempt from consent, which is why there is no switch.
| Cookie | Set by | Lasts | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
waheed_consent | waheed.infirst party | 180 days | Stores the choice you make on this page so you are not asked again on every visit. |
waheed_admin | waheed.infirst party | 7 days | Only ever set for a signed-in administrator of this site. Never set for a visitor. |
Visit countingNo switch
We run our own copy of Umami on the same server in Germany that serves this page. It counts which pages get read and where visitors arrived from. It sets no cookies, writes nothing to your browser storage, and the data never leaves our server or reaches another company. Your visit is grouped under a one-way hash of your IP address and browser, and the secret behind that hash is regenerated every day, so the same person on Monday and Tuesday is two unrelated rows that cannot be joined up. There is no switch here because there is nothing on your device to consent to. If your browser sends Do Not Track, it is skipped anyway.
- Umami (self-hosted) — Counts page views. Runs on our own server, not as a service we send you to. Data goes to Nowhere. It stays on the same Hetzner server in Nuremberg, Germany. Their privacy notice.
Audience measurementYour choice
Counts visits and page views so we can see which articles are worth writing more of. Google Analytics gives you a randomly generated ID that lets it recognise the same browser returning later. Ahrefs states that it sets no cookies and collects no personal data; it is grouped here anyway, because loading any third-party script sends your IP address to that third party, and that is your decision to make rather than ours.
- Google Analytics 4 — Counts visits and page views, and reports them to us in aggregate. Data goes to Google Ireland Limited, with onward transfer to Google LLC in the United States under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and Standard Contractual Clauses. Their privacy notice.
- Ahrefs Web Analytics — A second, lighter page-view count used as a sanity check on the first. Data goes to Ahrefs Pte Ltd, Singapore. Their privacy notice.
| Cookie | Set by | Lasts | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
_ga | waheed.infirst party | 2 years | A random ID that lets Google Analytics tell one browser from another. |
_ga_JWK6HQKXGY | waheed.infirst party | 2 years | Keeps the state of a single visit for this specific Analytics property. |
What happens when you switch something off
We delete the first-party cookies for that purpose immediately and reload the page so the script is no longer running in it. Nothing lingers waiting for a browser restart.
We also sweep, on every single load, the cookies of anything we have retired. This site ran Microsoft Clarity session recording until 22 August 2026; if you were here before then you are carrying _clck and _clsk, and we delete them whether you consented to them or not, because the purpose they served no longer exists. Microsoft’s own cookies sit on Microsoft’s domains and only your browser or Microsoft’s privacy dashboard can clear those.
You can also refuse everything at the browser level, before any site gets a say. Google offers a Google Analytics opt-out add-on that works across every site you visit.
How long your answer is kept
Your choice is stored for 180 days and then we ask again. If we ever add a service that is not listed above, your stored answer stops counting and the banner returns, because consent to the things on this page is not consent to something new.
Questions
Anything at all: info@waheed.in. Our privacy policy covers what happens to information you send us deliberately, such as a contact form.