Cookie policy

These keep the site working and cannot be switched off. Gold Scouts carries no advertising trackers.

• Sign-in and session storage. Only for accounts. Stored in your browser by our authentication provider so you stay signed in between visits, and used to keep requests secure.
• Your cookie choice. Stored as gs_consent_v1 so we remember whether you accepted optional analytics and do not ask again on every page.
• Anonymous activity identifier. A random string (sq_session_id) so repeated taps on a provider's contact link are not counted as separate visitors. It contains no personal information.
• Interface preferences. Small values remembering things like whether a panel is open.

Google Analytics 4. If you accept, Google sets cookies named _ga and _ga_* (Google's standard lifetime is two years) so we can see how many people visit, which pages and experiences are popular, and where visitors arrive from. Until you accept, Google Consent Mode keeps analytics storage denied and no analytics data is collected.

Microsoft Clarity. If you accept, Clarity records anonymised interaction data such as clicks, scrolling and page journeys so we can understand how visitors use the site and improve its usability. Clarity is not loaded at all unless you accept, and it sets its own cookies and browser storage when it runs.

You can accept or decline optional analytics at any time using Cookie settings, also linked in the footer of every page. Declining does not affect any part of the site — search, browsing, contacting providers and accounts all work normally. You can also clear or block browser storage through your browser settings, though blocking the sign-in token will prevent accounts from working.

More detail on how the resulting data is used is in our privacy policy.