Cookie policy
Last updated 21 October 2026
This policy explains the cookies and similar technologies used on The Parent Edit (theparentedit.co.uk), what they do and how you can control them. Read it alongside our privacy policy.
1. What cookies and similar technologies are
Cookies are small text files a website stores in your browser and reads back on later visits. Local storage and session storage do a similar job but stay in your browser rather than being sent with every request; session storage is cleared when you close the tab. In this policy “cookies” covers all three.
2. Our legal basis
Under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR) we need your consent to store or read anything on your device, unless it is strictly necessary to provide the site you have asked for. Where cookies involve personal data, UK GDPR applies too — see our privacy policy. No analytics or monitoring cookies are set until you choose “Accept analytics”, and choosing “Reject” is as easy as accepting.
3. The categories we use
Strictly necessary
Your cookie choice itself (pe.consent), and a cookie used only when one of our editors previews unpublished content. These cannot be switched off.
Functional
A few local and session storage records that remember which articles you have read and keep our newsletter prompt from appearing too often. They contain no name, email address or other personal details and are never shared with anyone else. When the site loads more articles into a feed, the list of articles you have read is sent to our own server so it can leave them out; it is not stored against you. These records are part of the reading experience you have asked for, so they are not covered by the banner; you can clear them at any time in your browser’s settings.
Analytics and monitoring (only with your consent)
If you accept analytics, we load Google Analytics to understand which articles are read and how people find us, and Datadog Real User Monitoring (when enabled) to measure how fast pages load and catch errors. We switch off Google Analytics’ advertising features, so nothing it collects here is used to target ads. If you reject or don’t answer, neither is loaded and their cookies are never set.
Third-party content
Some pages include content from other platforms. When an embed loads, that platform receives your IP address and browser details and may set or read its own cookies, under its own policy:
- YouTube (Google): we use YouTube’s privacy-enhanced domain, youtube-nocookie.com. Video thumbnails load from YouTube’s image servers when the page shows them; the player itself loads only when you press play — or, on a desktop computer with a mouse, when you rest the pointer on a video for a moment, which starts a silent preview.
- Spotify: podcast players load as you scroll them into view.
- Instagram (Meta): posts embedded in an article, and Instagram’s embed script, load when you open that article.
- TikTok: videos embedded in an article, and TikTok’s embed script, load when you open that article; in our TikTok video rows a video loads only when you press play.
We cannot control these platforms’ cookies; see the Google, Spotify, Instagram and TikTok privacy policies. We do not use cookies for advertising.
4. Cookies and storage we use
| Name | Provider | Purpose | Type | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
pe.consent | The Parent Edit | Remembers your answer to the cookie banner. | Strictly necessary · local storage | 12 months, then we ask again |
__prerender_bypass | The Parent Edit | Lets our editors preview unpublished articles. Only set for editors who open a preview. | Strictly necessary · cookie | Until the browser is closed |
pe:read-articles | The Parent Edit | The articles you have read (up to the last 200), so continuous feeds show unread stories first. | Functional · local storage | Until you clear your browser’s site data |
pe:newsletter-subscribed, pe:newsletter-first-seen, pe:newsletter-dismissals, pe:newsletter-dismissed-at | The Parent Edit | Whether you have signed up, when you first visited and when you dismissed the newsletter prompt, so it is not shown too often (or at all once you have signed up). | Functional · local storage | Until you clear your browser’s site data |
pe:newsletter-shown, pe:newsletter-new-visitor | The Parent Edit | Limits the newsletter prompt to once per visit. | Functional · session storage | Until you close the tab |
_ga, _ga_<id> | Google Analytics | Distinguishes visitors, and keeps track of each visit, for aggregate traffic reports. | Analytics · cookie (consent only) | 2 years |
_dd_s | Datadog | Groups page views into one session for performance and error monitoring. | Analytics · cookie (consent only) | 15 minutes after your last activity (4 hours at most) |
Datadog may use local storage under the same name if cookies are unavailable. In the Google Analytics cookie name, <id> stands for our Google Analytics account’s identifier.
5. Managing your preferences
You can change your choice at any time with — the same button is at the foot of every page. If you withdraw consent, we delete the Google Analytics and Datadog cookies straight away and tell both to stop using them; Datadog monitoring stops immediately, and Google Analytics is not loaded at all from your next page load.
Your browser also lets you block or delete cookies and site data — see the help pages for Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge. Blocking strictly necessary storage means we will ask about cookies on every visit.
6. Changes to this policy
We will update this policy when we add or remove a cookie. The date at the top shows when it last changed; if we add a new kind of analytics, we will ask for your consent again.
7. Contact us
Questions about cookies: hello@theparentedit.co.uk.