Cookie Policy

Cookies are small text files stored on your device when you visit a website. We use them sparingly and only where they help us run the site or understand how it is used.

When you first visit Gentle Space, you will see our cookie consent banner. You can accept analytics, or choose essential-only. You can change your choice at any time using the "Cookie settings" link in our footer.

Categories we use

Strictly necessary

These are required for the site to function. They include session cookies (so we know you are logged in) and the small piece of browser storage that remembers your consent choice. You cannot turn these off; without them, the site will not work.

Analytics

We use Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to understand which articles people find useful and where the site could be better. It only stores anything on your device if you accept analytics in the banner.

To be straight with you about what happens before you choose: the GA4 script itself is loaded on every page, because it is the thing that enforces the "no cookies yet" state. While you have not accepted, it sends Google one anonymous message per page — the page address, and the ordinary connection details any website receives, such as your approximate location from your IP address and your browser type. It sets no cookie, reads nothing from your device, and the identifier attached to that message is generated fresh each time, so those messages cannot be joined up into a picture of you. Google uses them only as an aggregate estimate. They do not appear in our reports.

GA4 sets the following cookies:

• _ga: a randomly generated ID that distinguishes visitors. Expires after 2 years.
• _ga_<ID>: stores session state. Expires after 2 years.

We run GA4 in Consent Mode v2. Until you accept analytics, every storage signal is set to denied: no analytics cookies are set, and nothing is stored on or read from your device. If you have accepted before, that choice is applied before the first message is sent, so your visit is measured the way you asked for it. We never use advertising or personalisation cookies — those signals stay denied whatever you choose.

Third-party embeds (activated on click)

When you press play on a YouTube video embedded in an article, YouTube (via the youtube-nocookie.com domain) may set cookies to power the player. The video does not load until you click, so these cookies are only set if you choose to watch.

Changing your consent

You can re-open the consent banner by pressing "Cookie settings" in the footer at any time. Browser privacy controls (blocking third-party cookies, private browsing) also work as expected.

More detail

For more on how we handle your personal data generally, see our Privacy Policy.