Cookie policy

Most cookie policies exist to justify a long list of trackers. This one exists to record that there are none, which we think is more useful information and takes less of your time.

1. The position, stated plainly

As at the date above, vaderbarclay.com:

• sets no cookies of any kind: not necessary, not functional, not analytics, not advertising;
• loads no third-party scripts, tags, pixels or beacons;
• loads no external fonts: the typeface is served from this domain;
• embeds no third-party media, social widgets or chat tools;
• runs no analytics or visitor tracking of any kind.

You can verify this yourself. Open your browser’s developer tools, look at the Application or Storage tab, and you will find nothing stored for this domain. The Network tab will show every request going to vaderbarclay.com and nowhere else.

2. What cookies are

A cookie is a small text file a website asks your browser to store, which is then sent back on subsequent visits. Cookies have legitimate uses, such as keeping you signed in or remembering a preference, and they are also the mechanism behind most cross-site advertising and tracking.

Under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, a website must obtain consent before setting any cookie that is not strictly necessary for a service you have requested. Because this site sets none at all, that requirement does not arise and no consent banner is shown.

3. Why there are none

This was a deliberate decision rather than an oversight, for three reasons.

1. People arrive here in confidence. A meaningful number of visitors to this site are researching a difficult financial situation. Whether someone read our page on capital readiness is not information we want to hold, and it is certainly not information we want a third-party advertising network to hold.
2. The site does not need them. There is no sign-in, no basket, no personalisation. Every page is the same for every visitor, so there is nothing to remember.
3. It makes the site faster. No third-party requests means fewer connections, less JavaScript and a page that renders quickly on a poor connection.

4. What is recorded instead

Our hosting provider keeps standard server logs, as essentially all web servers do. These are not cookies and they do not identify you personally, but they do involve processing an IP address, so it is fair to describe them here.

These logs are not used to build a profile of you, are not combined with any other data, and are not shared with anyone for marketing. Our lawful basis is legitimate interests: keeping the site available and secure. See the privacy policy for the full picture.

5. Links and third-party content

This site links out to a small number of external pages, such as the Information Commissioner’s Office. Following such a link takes you to a site with its own cookie practices, over which we have no control. Nothing is loaded from those sites while you are on ours. A link is only a link until you click it.

We do not embed videos, maps, social feeds or chat widgets, each of which would ordinarily introduce third-party cookies.

6. If this ever changes

Should we introduce analytics or any other cookie in future, then before it goes live we will:

• update this page with what is set, by whom, why, and for how long;
• implement a consent mechanism that asks before anything non-essential is set;
• make refusing as easy as accepting, in one action, with no pre-ticked boxes;
• ensure the site continues to work fully for anyone who declines.

We would not deploy anything that made a visit to this site visible to an advertising network.

7. Controlling cookies generally

Although this site sets none, you may wish to manage cookies across the web. Every major browser lets you view stored cookies, delete them, and block them by default. The controls are usually under Settings, then Privacy. Blocking all cookies will break sign-in on many sites, so most people find blocking third-party cookies the more practical setting.

8. Contacting us

If you have a question about this policy, or believe you have found something on this site setting a cookie, please tell us at contact@vaderbarclay.com. We would want to know and we would fix it.