Cookies, storage and analytics
Last updated
We ask once whether we may count how the site is used. If you say no, we record that you said no and nothing else: no identifier is created, and nothing is ever sent. If you say yes, the measuring is ours alone: no advertiser, network or analytics company receives anything about you, and we never record what you typed into the register checker.
Change your mind, now
This is the whole withdrawal process. It takes effect immediately and stops any further measurement from this browser.
Done. Nothing further will be recorded from this browser.
What we measure, if you agree
Which pages get read, how far down a guide people get, whether the register checker found what somebody was looking for, and whether the claim form is finished or abandoned. It exists to answer one question: is this site actually useful, and where is it not.
Events are joined together by a random number your browser generates for itself when you agree. It is not derived from your device, your address or anything about you, and it is the only reason we ask at all. Say no and it is never generated, so there is nothing to join.
What we refuse to record
- What you typed into the checker. It is a business name, very often a sole trader's own name, and a log of searches is a log of who is being checked up on. We record the outcome, which is found, not found or too many, and never the query.
- Anything after a question mark in an address. Stripped before the address is recorded, everywhere, without exception.
- Your IP address. Nothing writes one into a record and nothing derives a visitor from one.
- Anything at all before you have answered. There is no queue and no buffer. If there is no consent, there is no event.
No third parties
There is no advertising script, no social widget, no tag manager and no third-party analytics on this site. The measuring is done by our own code and stored by Cloudflare, who host the site and would be handling your request either way.
One other thing loads from Cloudflare and we would rather name it than have you find it. The
forms at /claim/ use Turnstile, Cloudflare's check that
a submission is coming from a person, and it loads from
challenges.cloudflare.com. It runs whatever you answered about measurement,
because it is what stops the form being used to submit thousands of false claims about other
people's businesses. That is a security measure rather than a form of counting, and the law
treats it as strictly necessary. It sets no cookie we can read and it is told nothing about
you beyond the request it is checking.
What is stored on your device
| Name | Kind | Set when | Purpose | Lasts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
cc_consent | Local storage | You answer the question | Remembers your answer so we do not ask again. Needs no consent of its own: remembering that you said no is how we honour your saying no. | Until you clear it |
theme | Local storage | You switch to dark or light | Remembers which you chose. | Until you clear it |
cc_rl | Cookie | You use the register checker | Stops the register being harvested. Strictly necessary, so it needs no consent. See below. | 30 minutes |
cf_clearance | Cookie | Cloudflare checks a request looks human | Security. Strictly necessary. | Up to 1 year |
Why the checker needs a cookie
The register holds around 417,000 entries, most of them sole traders listed at what is very often a home address. The checker answers questions about a business you can already name, and the limit that stops somebody working through the whole list used to count network addresses. That turned out not to work: a modern computer often has both an old-style and a new-style address and may use a fresh one for every request, so one person looked like several and the limit never triggered.
So the checker gives your browser a random number and counts that instead. It is not tied to you, it is not readable by any script on the page, it is not used for analytics, and the record it belongs to is deleted after ten minutes. If you block it, the checker still works and the limit falls back to counting addresses.
Counting page views without asking
We also use Cloudflare Web Analytics, which counts page views without setting a cookie, without storing anything on your device and without being able to follow you to another site. Because it stores nothing on your device it needs no consent, and it runs whatever you answer. It tells us how many people saw a page and nothing whatever about who they were.
Keeping this honest
The version of this notice you agreed to is recorded alongside your consent, currently
2026-08-a. If we change what we do, the version changes, your old
agreement stops counting and you are asked again rather than quietly carried over.
If any of this does not match what you can observe the site doing, that is a defect and we want to know: privacy@checkedandcleared.co.uk. See also the privacy notice, which covers the register data itself rather than this site.