The cookies we use.

We keep cookies to the minimum, and this page lists all of them. A couple are strictly necessary to run the site. Some tell us, in aggregate, how the site is used so we can improve it. Some measure our advertising, because buying ads is how most readers find us and we would otherwise be spending blind.

Strictly necessary

These make the site work and remember decisions you make. They cannot be switched off here.

• astroly_cookie_consent — remembers your choice, so you are not asked again. Stored locally.
• astroly_session — remembers your progress through the reading flow so you don't lose your place. Stored locally.
• __stripe_mid, __stripe_sid — set by Stripe on the payment step only, to detect card fraud. Stripe is our payment processor and these are required to take a payment safely. They expire after about a year and 30 minutes respectively.

Analytics

We use Google Analytics 4 and Microsoft Clarity to understand, in aggregate, how the site is used. We never sell your data.

• _ga, _ga_* — Google Analytics, to distinguish visitors and sessions. Typically expire after up to 2 years.
• _clck, _clsk — Microsoft Clarity, for aggregate usage and session insights. Expire within about a year.

Advertising

We advertise on Meta (Facebook and Instagram). When our ads are running, its measurement tag loads here so we can tell which ads actually brought someone to the site, and so the platform can show our ads to people like our readers. Meta receives that activity and also uses it for its own purposes, which we do not control. It never receives your birth details or your reading.

• _fbp, _fbc — Meta, to connect an ad click to a visit. Expire after about 3 months.

Your choice, and when any of this loads

If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, none of it loads until you accept. On your first visit you are asked, with an Accept and a Decline of equal weight; if you decline, or simply never answer, no analytics or advertising script is ever placed on the page.

Everywhere else, including Australia and New Zealand, the analytics and advertising tags above load without a prompt, on the basis of our legitimate interest in understanding how the site is used and whether our advertising works. We do this because the law where you are does not require prior consent for it, and because a banner on every page is friction we would rather not put in front of you.

Either way the choice stays yours: the cookie notice control below re-opens it wherever you are, and choosing Decline stops everything on this page from that moment on. Only the things that make the site work at all are loaded without asking. Declining changes nothing about the site, the funnel, or your reading.

We work out where you are from your device's own time zone setting, read in your browser. It never leaves your device and we do not store it.

If you would like to go further, most browsers include tracking protection, there is a Google Analytics opt-out add-on, and you can limit what Meta and Pinterest do with ad data in your Meta ad preferences and your Pinterest privacy and data settings.

For how we handle personal data more broadly, see our privacy notice.

Last updated: 12 August 2026.