What the site sets, for what purpose, and how you control it.

1. What is a cookie

A cookie is a small text file placed on a reader’s device by a website when the reader visits. Similar technologies include localStorage, sessionStorage, pixels, beacons, and server-side session identifiers. This notice uses “cookie” as a shorthand for all such technologies.

2. Categories of cookies used on this site

The firm distinguishes four categories of cookies. The table below describes what is currently set, the purpose, the lawful basis, and the storage duration. The list is controlling; no category outside this list is set on the website.

2.1 Strictly necessary

Cookies required for the website to function, including the session identifier used by the WordPress platform during active navigation, the consent record once a consent choice is made, and any cookie required for the secure operation of the Enquiry form when the form is active. These cookies do not require consent under the DPDP Act 2023 because they are necessary for the firm to provide the service the reader has requested.

2.2 Preference

Cookies that remember the reader’s stated preferences, including the preferred text-size choice where offered, and language preferences if and when multi-language variants are introduced. These cookies operate on the basis of consent and are set only after consent is recorded.

2.3 Analytics

Where analytics are enabled, the site operates Google Analytics 4 through Site Kit, configured to anonymise IP addresses, disable advertising signals, and retain data for the minimum retention period offered by the platform. Analytics cookies are set only after consent is recorded. Readers who decline analytics consent are not tracked by these cookies.

2.4 Third-party embedded content

If and when external content is embedded on the site (for example, a Substack subscription widget on The Letter page), the relevant third party may set its own cookies. Such third-party cookies are governed by the third party’s cookie policy, and the firm’s cookie consent interface provides a mechanism to decline these cookies where technically feasible.

3. Cookie consent

Where consent is required, a consent interface is presented on first visit. The reader may accept all cookies, decline all non-essential cookies, or select categories individually. The consent choice is recorded in a cookie that carries no personal identifier and is retained for twelve months, after which consent is sought again. The reader may revisit and revise the consent choice at any time through a persistent control offered in the site footer.

4. Lawful basis under the DPDP Act 2023

Strictly necessary cookies operate on the lawful basis of legitimate use necessary for the provision of the service. All other cookies operate on the lawful basis of consent obtained at the point of first access. Consent is specific, informed, unconditional, unambiguous, and capable of being withdrawn as easily as it was given, in line with the requirements of Section 6 of the DPDP Act 2023.

5. Browser-level controls

The reader’s browser provides controls to block, limit, or delete cookies at the browser level. These controls are offered at the operating system or browser level and are independent of the firm’s consent interface. Use of browser-level controls may cause portions of the website to malfunction; this is a known consequence of blocking strictly-necessary cookies and is not a defect in the website.

6. Do Not Track signals

Browser-level Do Not Track signals and Global Privacy Control signals are respected where they are received. Where such a signal is received on first visit, the site treats the signal as a decline of all non-essential cookies and does not prompt for consent. The reader may revoke this default and opt into non-essential cookies through the consent interface.

7. Children

The firm does not knowingly set cookies on devices used by children under the age of eighteen. Strictly-necessary cookies, which do not require consent, operate regardless of the device’s user. Where a data principal is known to be a child, non-essential cookies are not set.

8. Updates to this notice

This notice is reviewed whenever the site’s tracker footprint changes. The version date below is controlling. When a change materially affects the categories of cookies set or the lawful basis relied on, readers who have previously recorded a consent choice are asked to re-affirm that choice.

9. Relationship to the Privacy Notice

This notice addresses cookies and trackers specifically. Broader personal-data processing, data-subject rights, retention, cross-border transfers, and grievance mechanisms are addressed in the firm’s Privacy Notice. Where the two notices address the same question, the Privacy Notice is controlling.

Version date: 23 April 2026