Privacy and Analytics

Virtue & Paradox measures visits with two tools, Google Analytics and Cloudflare Web Analytics, and runs no advertising. This page explains what each tool does, when Google Analytics loads, how to change your choice and what happens to email sent to the site.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics counts visits and shows which pages are read. When it loads, it sets two first-party cookies in your browser: _ga, which tells one browser from another, and a cookie whose name starts with _ga_, which keeps track of the current visit. By Google's default settings both last up to 2 years, though browsers may delete them sooner.

Google Analytics records the pages you open, the page that sent you here, your browser and device type and an approximate location worked out from your connection. It can also record interactions such as scrolling down a page, following a link to another site or downloading a file.

The site's Google Analytics property uses fixed settings: event data retention is set to 14 months, Google signals is turned off, and all of the account's data-sharing settings are turned off. When Google Analytics loads, the site sends Google its consent settings: ad storage, ad user data and ad personalization are denied, and analytics storage is granted. Google describes how it uses information collected this way on Google's page about sites and apps that use its services.

When Google Analytics loads

Visitors in the European Economic Area (the 27 EU countries plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway), the United Kingdom and Switzerland are asked first. The same applies in French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Réunion, Mayotte, Saint Martin, the Åland Islands, Gibraltar, Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.

In those places, a notice asks whether to allow Google Analytics, with a button to accept and a button to reject. Until you accept, Google Analytics is not loaded at all: no request goes to Google and no Google Analytics cookie is set. If you reject, it stays unloaded on later visits too. If you accept, it loads at once and on the pages you open after that.

When no choice has been saved, the page asks Cloudflare, which serves the site, for the country of your connection. If that check fails, or the country cannot be determined, the page treats you as being in one of the places listed above and shows the notice.

Everywhere else, Google Analytics loads without a notice. You can still turn it off, as the next section explains.

Changing your choice

A link in the footer of every page reopens the notice, wherever you are. Choosing reject there turns Google Analytics off in that browser from then on; if it was already running on the page, the page reloads without it. Choosing accept turns it on.

Your choice is saved in your browser's local storage for this site, not in a cookie, and it is not sent to Google or to the site. If you clear the site's data, the choice is forgotten: in the places listed above you are asked again, and elsewhere Google Analytics loads again. If your browser blocks local storage, the choice cannot be saved. In the places listed above the notice then returns on each page and Google Analytics stays off unless you accept on that page; elsewhere it loads again on the next page.

Turning Google Analytics off does not delete cookies it has already set. Your browser's settings can remove them.

Cloudflare Web Analytics

Cloudflare serves the site, so every request for a page passes through its network. Cloudflare also adds a small piece of code from static.cloudflareinsights.com to each page. That code counts page views, measures how quickly pages load in real browsers and sends the measurements to an address on this site.

Cloudflare Web Analytics does not use cookies or local storage, and Cloudflare states that it does not fingerprint visitors. It runs for every visitor in every region, and the Google Analytics notice does not control it. To block it, use a content blocker or a browser setting that blocks requests to static.cloudflareinsights.com. The pages work the same without it.

Advertising

The site shows no advertising and loads no advertising code. If that changes, this page will be updated to name the advertising provider, explain the cookies it uses and say how to opt out.

Email

Messages sent to contact@virtueandparadox.com are used only to deal with what the message is about, such as checking a reported error or a lead on a quotation's source. The address is not added to any mailing list.

Questions about this page

Write to contact@virtueandparadox.com.