Cookies
Four categories, every cookie by name, and a switch for each. Nothing non-essential runs until you say so.
Last updated September 2026.
What a cookie is doing here
A cookie is a small note this site leaves in your browser so the next page knows what the last one did. Local storage is the same idea with a longer memory.
Some of those notes are load-bearing: without them the package you are building disappears when you change page. The rest are optional, and optional means off until you switch them on.
The four categories
Essential is always on, because the site does not work without it. Preferences, analytics and marketing are yours to decide, and they start off.
Essential
Always on
Keeps the site working: session, your consent record, the package you are building, your remembered industry.
Preferences
Remembers choices like your trade and UI settings between visits.
Analytics
Which pages get read and where visitors give up. Our analytics (Cloudflare Web Analytics) is cookieless and needs no consent, so today nothing is set under this category; it is here for any tool that would.
Marketing
Ad pixels and retargeting. We rarely run them; if we do, only with this on.
The cookies, by name
This is the whole list. If it is not here, we are not setting it.
| Name | Purpose | Lasts | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
| balsam_consent | Your choices on this screen | 12 months | Essential |
| balsam.package.v1 | The package you are building | Until cleared | Essential |
| balsam.platform.v1 | The client portal, while it runs in your browser | Until cleared | Essential |
| balsam.site.v1 | Your remembered industry | Until cleared | Essential |
| _fbp | Meta ads, only if you allow it | 3 months | Marketing |
Policy version 2026-09.
What we keep when you choose
Your browser keeps a cookie called balsam_consent holding the policy version, a random consent id, the time, and which categories you allowed. We mirror the same record into local storage under balsam.consent.v1 so a cleared cookie jar does not lose your answer.
We keep a matching receipt: the same id, version, categories and time, plus a one-way hash of your IP address and browser string. Never the raw address.
Declining is the exception. It stores nothing at all — no cookie, no receipt — so the banner comes back on your next visit.
Global Privacy Control
If your browser sends the Global Privacy Control signal, we read it as "essential only" and never show you the banner. A small note tells you we did. You can still open preferences and turn something on deliberately if you want to.
Changing your mind
Use the button on this page or the cookie link in the footer. It opens the same panel as the banner, with whatever you chose last time already set.
You can also clear cookies in your browser settings, which wipes the record entirely and starts the conversation over.
When the list changes
Adding a cookie means bumping the policy version, and a new version re-asks everyone. An old yes does not carry over to a list you never saw.