Cookie Policy

Effective date: August 13, 2026.

1. Scope of This Policy

This Cookie Policy describes how Colbertism (“we,” “us,” or “our”), an independent economics and markets publication operated from Indonesia, uses cookies and similar technologies on this website. It applies to every page of the site, including articles, archives, the newsletter subscribe form, the comment forms, and the contact form. It does not apply to third-party websites we link to from our coverage; those sites carry their own cookie notices.

This policy supplements, and should be read together with, our Privacy Policy, which explains how we handle personal data generally, and our Advertising Disclosure, which explains our relationship with advertising providers. Use of the site is also governed by our Terms of Use, under which Indonesian law applies.

2. Cookies and Similar Technologies Defined

To keep the rest of this document precise, we use the following terms:

  • Cookie. A small text file that a website asks your browser to store on your device. Each cookie has a name, a value, an owner domain, and an expiry. A session cookie is deleted when you close your browser. A persistent cookie remains on your device until its expiry date or until you delete it. Cookies cannot run programs or deliver malware; they are passive records that your browser sends back to the domain that set them.
  • localStorage and sessionStorage. Browser storage areas that a website’s scripts can write to. Unlike cookies, this data is not automatically transmitted with every request and has no built-in expiry (localStorage persists until cleared; sessionStorage clears when the tab closes). Where this policy regulates cookies, the same rules apply to our use of these storage areas.
  • Pixels (web beacons). Tiny, usually invisible images or short code snippets embedded in a page. When your browser loads a pixel, the server hosting it learns that the page was viewed and can read any cookies it previously set. Advertising and measurement services commonly use pixels together with cookies.
  • Similar technologies. Any comparable technique for storing or reading information on your device, including scripts that generate identifiers. References to “cookies” in this policy include all of the above unless stated otherwise.

3. First-Party and Third-Party Cookies

A first-party cookie is set by the site you are visiting; on this site, that means cookies whose owner domain is ours. We use first-party cookies for core functionality, such as testing whether your browser accepts cookies, protecting forms against forged submissions, and remembering comment details you have asked us to remember.

A third-party cookie is set by a different domain whose content is embedded in our pages, though today the Site embeds no advertising units at all; if advertising ever launches, Google and its advertising domains would join this category. We do not control the contents of third-party cookies and cannot read them; only the domain that set a cookie can read it. Section 6 describes the third-party advertising cookies in detail, and Section 7 explains how to block them.

4. Cookie Categories We Use

Every cookie on this site falls into one of four categories. Only the first category is required for the site to function.

Category Purpose Typical lifetime Required?
Strictly necessary Core operation: testing cookie support, securing the contact, comment, and newsletter forms against forged or automated submissions, and basic load balancing or security functions provided by our hosting stack. Session, or up to a few hours Yes. These load without consent because the site cannot operate safely without them.
Preferences Remembering choices you make, such as the name, email, and website you enter when commenting, or interface settings for logged-in editorial staff. From session up to 1 year No. If blocked, you simply re-enter details each time.
Analytics Measuring aggregate readership: which articles are read, how visitors arrive, approximate geography. Identifiers are random values, not your name. From 24 hours up to 2 years No. Blocking has no visible effect on your reading experience.
Advertising (none set today) Not in use. If advertising launches, cookies in this category would serve ads through a network such as Google AdSense, cap how often you see the same ad, measure ad performance, detect fraud, and, only with your consent where required, personalize ads. From 15 minutes up to 13 months No. Ads may still appear but will be non-personalized or limited.

5. Representative Cookies on This Site

The table below lists the specific cookies you are most likely to encounter here, together with the Google advertising cookies that would appear only if advertising ever launches (none of those are set today). Third-party names and durations are set by their operators and can change without notice; where Google publishes updated lists, those lists prevail over this table. Durations shown are maximums from the time the cookie is set or refreshed.

Cookie name Set by Purpose Duration
wordpress_test_cookie Colbertism (WordPress) Checks whether your browser accepts cookies so forms behave correctly. Session
wp-settings-{id}, wp-settings-time-{id} Colbertism (WordPress) Stores interface preferences for logged-in accounts. In practice this affects only our editorial staff, since readers do not log in. 1 year
comment_author_{hash}, comment_author_email_{hash}, comment_author_url_{hash} Colbertism (WordPress) Remembers the name, email address, and website you entered with a comment so you do not retype them. Set only if you tick the “save my details” option when commenting. 347 days
Form security tokens (nonce or CSRF cookies) Colbertism Verifies that submissions to the contact, comment, and newsletter forms originate from a real visitor on our pages, not from an automated or forged request. Session to 12 hours
_ga, _ga_* Google Analytics (if enabled) Distinguishes visitors with a random identifier for aggregate readership statistics. 2 years
_gid Google Analytics (if enabled) Distinguishes visitors for day-level reporting. 24 hours
test_cookie Google (doubleclick.net) Checks whether your browser supports cookies before advertising cookies are set. 15 minutes
NID Google (google.com) Stores ad preferences and supports frequency capping, including for non-personalized ads. 6 months
IDE Google (doubleclick.net) Serves and measures ads across sites; supports personalized advertising where consented. 13 months
__gads, __gpi Google (set on our domain) Supports ad delivery and measurement on this site, including frequency capping and fraud detection. 13 months

6. Advertising Cookies: None Today, and the Consent Rules for Later

How Google AdSense Would Use Cookies

We display no advertising today and set no advertising cookies. If that changes, we may display advertising served by Google AdSense. When an ad unit loads, Google and the certified advertising vendors it works with may set and read cookies (and use pixels) to select which ad to show, to limit how many times you see the same creative, to measure whether an ad was viewed or clicked, to detect invalid or fraudulent activity, and to compile aggregate reports for advertisers. Google’s own documentation of these practices is published at policies.google.com/technologies/cookies and policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites. We do not receive the contents of these cookies; we receive only aggregate reporting. We accept no sponsored content and no paid placements, as explained in our Advertising Disclosure and Editorial Standards; the only commercial material on this site is clearly delineated advertising served through these systems.

Personalized and Non-Personalized Advertising

Personalized ads are selected using information about your past browsing across sites, inferred interests, and demographic estimates, all held by Google and its vendors, not by us. Non-personalized ads are selected using only contextual signals: the content of the page you are reading, your approximate location derived from your IP address, and general topics. Non-personalized ads still rely on some cookies, such as NID, for frequency capping, aggregate reporting, and fraud prevention, but not for building an interest profile.

Consent in the EEA and the United Kingdom

If you visit from the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, non-essential cookies (preferences, analytics, and advertising) are set only after you give consent through a consent notice; that notice will be in place from the moment any such cookie is introduced. You may consent to some categories and refuse others, and you may withdraw or change your consent at any time by reopening the cookie settings link in the site footer. If you refuse advertising cookies, ads that appear will be non-personalized or served in Google’s limited mode, which operates without cookies used for personalization. Refusing consent never blocks access to our articles. For visitors from other regions, including Indonesia, we apply the same categories and honor the same opt-out tools described below.

Opting Out of Personalized Advertising

You can opt out of personalized advertising independently of your browser settings:

Two practical warnings. First, these opt-outs are usually stored in a cookie, so clearing your cookies also clears the opt-out and you will need to repeat it. Second, opt-outs apply per browser and per device; set them on each browser and device you use.

Affiliate Cookies (Future Use)

We do not currently use affiliate links. If we adopt them in the future, affiliate networks would set cookies to attribute a purchase to a link on this site, typically lasting between 24 hours and 90 days. Before any affiliate link goes live, we commit to updating this policy with the networks used and their cookie durations, updating the Advertising Disclosure, and labeling affiliate links in the articles that contain them.

7. Managing Cookies in Your Browser

Every mainstream browser lets you view, block, and delete cookies, either wholesale or site by site. The settings live here:

  • Chrome (desktop): Settings, then Privacy and security, then Third-party cookies and Site settings. You can block third-party cookies globally, clear data for individual sites, or delete everything.
  • Safari (Mac): Safari menu, then Settings, then Privacy. “Prevent cross-site tracking” restricts third-party cookies by default; “Block all cookies” disables them entirely. Manage stored data under Manage Website Data.
  • Safari (iPhone and iPad): the Settings app, then Safari (on newer iOS versions, Settings, then Apps, then Safari), under Privacy and Security.
  • Firefox: Settings, then Privacy and Security. Enhanced Tracking Protection blocks known tracking cookies at its default level; the Cookies and Site Data section lets you clear or manage exceptions.
  • Edge: Settings, then Cookies and site permissions for per-site control, and Settings, then Privacy, search, and services for tracking prevention levels (Basic, Balanced, Strict).
  • Chrome (Android) and Samsung Internet: the browser’s Settings, then Site settings (Chrome) or Sites and downloads (Samsung Internet), where cookie and third-party cookie controls live.

To remove localStorage data as well as cookies, use your browser’s “clear site data” or “clear browsing data” function and include “site data” or “cached storage” in the selection. Browsers also offer private or incognito windows, which discard all cookies when the window closes.

8. Consequences of Blocking Each Category

You can read this entire site with all non-essential cookies blocked. The specific effects of blocking are:

  • Strictly necessary: blocking these may prevent the contact, comment, or newsletter forms from submitting, because the security tokens that validate submissions cannot be verified. Reading articles is unaffected.
  • Preferences: the comment form will no longer pre-fill your name and email, and any saved display choices reset on each visit. Nothing breaks.
  • Analytics: no visible effect for you at all. We simply lose aggregate insight into readership.
  • Advertising: nothing changes today, because no advertising cookies are set. If advertising launches, blocking this category would make ads contextual rather than personalized, degrade frequency capping, and leave some slots empty.

9. Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control

Some browsers can send a Do Not Track (DNT) header. No common standard ever emerged for interpreting it, and like most publishers we do not alter site behavior in response to DNT alone. Our first-party data collection is minimal regardless of the signal.

Global Privacy Control (GPC) is a newer signal that expresses an opt-out preference. Where applicable law treats GPC as a valid objection to targeted advertising, and once consent tooling is live and supports the signal, we will treat a GPC signal as a refusal of advertising cookies for that browser. Because signal support in consent tools evolves, we recommend relying on the opt-out URLs in Section 6, which take effect regardless of header support.

10. Relationship to Our Privacy Policy

This Cookie Policy explains the technologies; the Privacy Policy explains the data. Questions about what personal data we hold, how long we retain it, the legal bases we rely on, and the rights you can exercise (including under Indonesia’s Personal Data Protection Law and, where applicable, the GDPR and UK GDPR) are answered there. If the two documents ever appear to conflict regarding the processing of personal data, the Privacy Policy prevails. Definitions used in the Privacy Policy carry the same meaning here.

11. Changes to This Cookie Policy

We review this policy at least annually and whenever our cookie usage changes, for example if we enable a new analytics tool, change advertising providers, or introduce affiliate links. When we make material changes, we will update the effective date at the top of this page and post a notice on the legal hub for at least 30 days. Where a change involves a new non-essential cookie for EEA or UK visitors, the consent notice, once live, will re-prompt before that cookie is set. Continued use of the site after the effective date of a revised policy constitutes acceptance of the revision to the extent permitted by applicable law; consent-based cookies always remain subject to your consent choices.

12. Questions and Contact

If anything in this policy is unclear, if you believe a cookie is being set that this policy does not describe, or if you want help exercising an opt-out, contact us through the contact form. Questions can also be emailed to [email protected]; both routes reach the operator directly. We aim to respond to cookie-related questions within 14 days. Please mention the browser and device you are using, since cookie behavior often depends on both. More about who we are is on the about page.