Cookies

1What cookies are

Cookies are small files placed on your device when you visit a website. Similar technologies include pixels, tags, local storage and software development kits. We use the word cookies in this notice to cover all of them.

Some are needed to make the site work. Others help us understand how the site is used, or let us advertise. You choose which of the optional ones you allow.

2How to change your choices

• Use the cookie button in the corner of every page, or the cookie preferences link in the footer. It is always available, on every page, including this one.
• Withdrawing consent is as easy as giving it. There is no penalty for saying no, and the site works without the optional cookies.
• You can also block or delete cookies in your browser settings. If you block strictly necessary cookies, parts of the site will not work.
• Your choice is stored for 12 months if you accepted, or 6 months if you declined, after which we will ask again.

3The categories we use

Category	What it does	Consent needed?
Strictly necessary	Signing you in, keeping your session, security, fraud prevention, load balancing, and remembering your cookie choice	No. These cannot be switched off
Functional	Remembering preferences such as light or dark mode, language and layout	Yes in the EU. In the UK we may rely on a statutory exception, and where we do we give you a free and simple way to opt out
Performance and analytics	Understanding how many people visit, which pages they read and how the site performs	See Section 6
Advertising	Measuring advertising, building audiences and showing you relevant ads on other sites	Yes, always. Off until you say yes

4The cookies we use

Our most recent scan covered 450 pages and found 49 cookies across 20 scripts. The table below describes the main ones by provider and purpose. The full, current, itemised list with exact names and durations is always available in the cookie preferences panel, reachable from the cookie button on any page.

Provider	Purpose	Category	Typical duration
Ghost	Keeps you signed in as a member and maintains your session	Strictly necessary	Session to 6 months
Cloudflare	Bot management, security and load balancing	Strictly necessary	30 minutes to 1 year
CookieYes	Stores your cookie choices so we do not ask again	Strictly necessary	6 to 12 months
Ghost theme	Remembers whether you chose light or dark mode	Functional	1 year
Google	Website measurement, and advertising measurement where you consent	Analytics and advertising	Up to 2 years
LinkedIn	Advertising measurement, audience building and retargeting	Advertising	Up to 2 years
YouTube	Set only if you play an embedded video	Advertising	Up to 2 years
Podbean	Set only if you play an embedded podcast episode	Analytics	Varies

5Our main analytics use no cookies

Employer Branding News uses the analytics built into Ghost, provided in partnership with Tinybird. These behave differently from most analytics and it is worth explaining why.

• They use no cookies and no other form of persistent browser storage to recognise you across sessions, browsers or devices.
• Unique visitors are counted within 24-hour windows only. If you visit today and again next week, that counts as two visitors, not one returning one.
• They are first-party. The tracking is served by our own domain and the data is scoped to our site.
• The data is stored in the European Union.
• Because nothing is stored on your device, these analytics do not require your consent, and they are not affected by rejecting analytics cookies.

If you are signed in as a member, we record your member identifier and whether your membership is free or paid, so we can understand which content is useful to members. We do not share this with third parties and we do not use it for advertising. Our lawful basis is our legitimate interest in understanding how our content is used, and you can object at any time.

6Analytics, and the difference between the UK and the EU

The law on analytics cookies is now different in the UK and the EU, and we apply each correctly rather than applying one rule everywhere.

Where you are	What we do
European Union or EEA	We ask for your consent before any analytics cookie is set. Nothing analytics-related runs until you say yes.
United Kingdom	The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 created a narrow exception for analytics whose sole purpose is producing statistics to improve our own service. It is not a blanket exemption: it applies only if we give you clear information and a free, simple way to object. Analytics that share data with a provider for that provider's own purposes, which includes Google Analytics in its default configuration, do not qualify. Where a technology does not qualify, we ask for your consent in the UK exactly as we do in the EU.
Elsewhere	We apply the stricter of the local requirement and our EU standard.

7Advertising and your rights

Advertising cookies are always off until you turn them on. If you consent, we and our advertising partners may measure how our advertising performs and show you relevant advertising on other platforms.

In some US states, this kind of advertising counts as sharing your personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising. Declining or withdrawing advertising consent using the cookie button operates as your opt-out of that sharing. We do not sell personal information for money.

8Global Privacy Control and Do Not Track

We honour Global Privacy Control signals. If your browser or extension sends one, we treat it as an opt-out of advertising cookies and of any sharing for cross-context behavioural advertising, and we will not set advertising cookies.

There is no agreed standard for Do Not Track browser headers, so we do not respond to them. Please use the cookie button or Global Privacy Control instead.

9The EBN provider directory

Our provider directory at directory.employerbranding.news runs on a separate platform, Directify, and is worth describing because it is unusually light on tracking.

• It sets only strictly necessary cookies: a session cookie and a security token that protects forms from cross-site request forgery.
• Its visitor analytics are self-hosted by the platform on EU infrastructure. No third-party analytics run on directory pages.
• Web fonts are served from the directory's own domain, so your browser makes no request to any font provider.
• Because nothing beyond the strictly necessary is set, the directory does not need a consent banner. If we ever add advertising or third-party analytics there, we will add one and update this notice first.
• If a listing displays a map, your browser loads map images from OpenStreetMap, which means your IP address reaches them. No cookies are set by that.

10The EBClub community

The EBClub community platform is operated by Beyond Cloudnine Limited on Heartbeat, at a separate address. The cookie choices you make here do not carry across to it, because it is a different service run by a different company. The EBClub Cookie Notice describes its cookies in full.

11Changes and contact

We review this notice whenever we add, remove or change a technology, and at least once a year. The version number and effective date are at the top.

Questions about cookies: dpo@employerbranding.news.