Cookie Policy

1.What this page is for

A cookie notice is supposed to tell you, before anything runs, what a website leaves on your device and why it is doing it. The point is that the choice stays yours rather than becoming ours.

This page lists every cookie and every piece of browser storage used by GoPickStack, and nothing else. It is written to be read rather than scrolled past. If you want the short version: we set no tracking cookies of our own, and the only cookies this site can set belong to third parties, and those stay switched off until you say yes.

2.We set no tracking cookies of our own

Most sites of this size load a tracking pixel, an advertising identifier, and a fingerprinting script within a second of the page appearing. This one does not. There is no GoPickStack analytics cookie, no advertising identifier, and no cross-site profile of you anywhere in our stack.

Everything this site remembers about you lives in your own browser, using local storage, and none of it is sent to us. The practical consequence is that we could not build a history of your reading habits even if we wanted one, because that data never leaves your device.

There is one first-party cookie, and it is not a tracking cookie: the record of the answer you gave to the consent panel. Without it we would have to ask you again on every single page.

3.What is stored in your browser

Every key we write begins with the prefix gopickstack. They hold preferences rather than information about anyone but you, and each one exists so the site does not feel broken every time you load a page.

Clearing site data in your browser removes all of this permanently. We keep no copy, so we cannot restore it for you. If you clear your shortlist, it is gone and has to be built again.

None of these keys is readable by another website you visit. Browsers scope local storage to the site that wrote it, and that applies to us like anyone else.

4.How consent works here

The panel asks two separate questions: whether optional analytics and affiliate storage may run, and whether your AI Copilot questions may be sent to a model provider. They are separate on purpose, and declining one never switches off the other.

The panel also needs one thing of its own: a record of what you chose, so the question is asked once rather than on every page load. That record is written to your browser under the consent key above and mirrored into a first-party cookie of the same name. It lasts one year, it contains only the categories you granted, and it holds no identifier that points back to you. We treat it as strictly necessary storage rather than as something you can refuse.

• Strictly necessary. The consent record described above. It cannot be switched off, because without it the panel reappears on every page.
• Analytics. Cookieless page view counting. Off until you allow it.
• Affiliate attribution. Partner cookies set by the networks that pay us when a reader buys through one of our links. Off until you allow it.
• AI Copilot. Sending your question text to an external model provider. Off until you allow it, and controlled separately from the two above.

If you decline everything optional, the site still works. Reviews, comparisons, the glossary, and your shortlist behave exactly as they do otherwise.

5.Affiliate networks and the cookies they set

GoPickStack earns money when a reader buys a tool through one of our links. That is stated on every review page and explained in our Affiliate Disclosure. The mechanics involve third-party networks that need to record that a particular click arrived from us, and those networks set their own cookies.

On your first scroll, tap, or key press the site loads https://s.skimresources.com/js/307363X1795646.skimlinks.js, which runs the Skimlinks attribution script. Waiting until you interact is deliberate: a page that has loaded nothing and done nothing cannot have set anything.

• That script sets partner cookies on behalf of the affiliate networks.
• The networks involved are Skimlinks, PartnerStack, Impact.com, and CJ Affiliate.
• The lifetime of those cookies is set by the networks rather than by us, and is typically 30 to 90 days.

This script is loaded only after you consent. While analytics and affiliate storage is switched off, it never runs, and the outbound links still work.

6.Analytics, and why it sets no cookie

We use Plausible, at plausible.io, to count page views. It is cookieless. It sets no cookie, creates no persistent identifier, and stores no personal data. What it records is a page view, the country you appear to be in, and the site you arrived from.

It is hosted in the European Union, and the script is loaded only after you consent. Because there is no identifier, there is nothing to link one visit to the next.

We use it to answer a single question: which reviews are worth spending a day keeping accurate. What comes back is a count of views, not a list of people.

7.The AI Copilot choice is not a cookie

When you ask the AI Copilot a question, the text of that question is sent to OpenRouter, a company in the United States, which passes it to whichever language model it routes the request to. What leaves your browser is what you typed, not a cookie, so it has its own switch in the consent panel rather than being bundled with the two above.

If you decline the AI category, the Copilot still answers. It falls back to our published review data instead of calling a model, so the answer will be narrower. Nothing else about the site changes.

Do not type anything into the Copilot that you would not want handed to a third-party service in another country. Our AI Features Policy explains what the Copilot can and cannot do, and what it may get wrong.

8.Global Privacy Control

Several US states now require websites to honour a browser signal called Global Privacy Control. If your browser sends that signal, we treat it as a refusal.

Analytics storage and affiliate storage are then forced to off, whatever you clicked earlier and whatever a stored choice says. Your signal overrides our record, not the other way round, and it stays in effect until you withdraw the signal or the law changes.

You can also send the signal yourself without browser settings. See Do Not Sell or Share My Information.

9.Changing your mind

Every choice on this page is reversible. Use the Manage cookies link in the site footer to reopen the panel, change any category, and confirm.

Withdrawing is exactly as easy as granting: same panel, same number of clicks, no support ticket, no email request. We do not treat a refusal as a reason to slow the site down or hide anything from you.

Withdrawing consent does not disturb anything we did lawfully before you withdrew it. A shortlist built last month is still readable on this device even if you switch every category off right now.

10.Controlling storage in your browser

You can block or delete cookies and site data through your own browser settings, independently of anything on this page. Every current browser allows both, and most let you block third-party cookies on their own without blocking anything else.

Blocking storage makes the site behave as though you had no saved preferences. Your shortlist and theme reset on each visit, and the consent panel reappears, because we can no longer see the record of your answer.

No editorial content sits behind any of it. Reviews, comparisons, and the glossary are static pages and load identically either way.

11.Questions about cookies or storage

Cookie and storage questions go to the same person who runs the site: Muhammad Shadab Shams, trading as GoPickStack. Email: hi@gopickstack.com. We answer privacy requests within the deadline set out in the Privacy Policy, and we do not charge for answering.

If you would rather see the storage than read about it, open your browser developer tools, go to the Application or Storage panel, and look for the keys listed above. That list is the whole of it. There is nothing hidden in it.