Cookie Policy
Last reviewed
This page lists every cookie spinacountry.com is capable of setting, what each one does, how long it stays on your device and how to remove it. We have named them individually rather than describing them in categories, because “we use cookies to improve your experience” tells you nothing you can act on.
The short version: we set 2 analytics cookies so we can see which country guides people actually read, and 3 advertising cookies through Google, which is how the site pays for itself. We do not sell data, we do not run a newsletter, and there is no account to create, so there is nothing to attach a cookie to in the first place.
What a cookie actually is
A cookie is a small text file a website asks your browser to store. On the next visit the browser hands it back, which is how a site can recognise a returning device without asking you anything. A cookie cannot read other files on your computer, cannot run a program and cannot see anything you do on other sites unless those sites use the same third-party service.
Cookies set by spinacountry.com itself are called first-party cookies. Cookies set by another company whose code runs on our pages — in our case Google — are third-party cookies. Every cookie in the table below is a third-party cookie set by Google, because we set none of our own.
Analytics cookies
We run Google Analytics 4 on every page. It tells us, in aggregate, which pages are read, how visitors arrived and which country they were in at country level. We use it for one thing: deciding which guides and tools to improve next. We cannot use it to identify you, and we never try.
Advertising cookies
Advertising through Google AdSense is what keeps this site free and free of sign-ups. Google and its certified partners may set cookies to limit how often you see the same ad, to measure whether an ad worked, and — only where you have given consent, or where local law permits it — to choose ads based on your interests. If you are in the UK, EEA or Switzerland, you will be asked for that consent before any personalised advertising cookie is set, and you can change your mind at any time using the links further down.
Every cookie, named
| Cookie | Set by | What it does | Expires |
|---|---|---|---|
| _ga | Google Analytics | Assigns a randomly generated ID to your browser so repeat visits are counted as one visitor rather than several. It holds no name, email or address. | 2 years |
| _ga_BB4JLGJX13 | Google Analytics | Holds session state for this specific property, so we can tell whether you arrived from a search result, a link or a bookmark. | 2 years |
| __gads | Google AdSense | Measures how many times an ad has been shown to you and limits repeats of the same ad. | 13 months |
| __gpi | Google AdSense | Stores an advertising identifier used to cap how often an ad appears and to report on ad performance. | 13 months |
| IDE / DSID | Google DoubleClick | Used by Google's ad platform to measure ad performance and, where you have consented, to personalise which ads you see. | Up to 13 months |
Advertising cookies appear only once advertising is live on the site. If you inspect your browser storage today and see fewer cookies than are listed here, that is why.
What we deliberately do not do
- We set no cookie of our own. Every tool on the site — the wheels, the quizzes, the generators — runs entirely in your browser and keeps its state in memory, so closing the tab discards it.
- We do not use social media tracking pixels, session recording, heatmaps or fingerprinting scripts.
- We do not require an account, so we hold no password, no profile and no history tied to you.
- We do not sell or share cookie data with anyone beyond the Google services named above.
How to switch cookies off
You have three independent levers, and none of them will stop the site working. Every page, wheel and quiz functions with all cookies blocked.
- Turn off personalised ads at the source. Visit Google My Ad Center to control how Google personalises advertising across every site, not just this one.
- Opt out of third-party vendors in bulk at aboutads.info or Your Online Choices for Europe.
- Block or delete cookies in your browser. The official instructions: Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge. Private or incognito windows discard all cookies when closed, which is the fastest option if you only want a one-off visit.
Changes to this policy
If we add or remove a script that sets cookies, this page is updated in the same change and the review date at the top moves with it. There is no separate archive: the page you are reading always describes the site as it is deployed right now.
Questions
Email qasimkhan656655@gmail.com with any question about cookies, or ask us to confirm what we hold. Our Privacy Policy covers the wider picture of what data reaches us and on what legal basis.