Cookies

This page explains the cookies and browser storage the Tapcord service (tapcord.app) uses. There are two kinds: the ones we need to run the service and remember your own preferences, and one optional set — Google Analytics — that only ever exists if you say yes.

We do not profile you, we do not run advertising or cross-site tracking scripts, and we never sell or share your browsing for advertising.

How we count visits, without cookies

Whatever you choose below, we keep our own basic count — how many people reached the site, which pages they looked at, and roughly where they came from — so we can tell whether Tapcord is reaching anyone at all. We measure that ourselves, first-party, in a way that stores nothing about you in your browser and cannot follow you around.

Concretely, when you open a page we record:

• the page address (without anything after the “?”),
• the website that linked you here — the site’s name only, never the full link you clicked,
• a campaign label, if you arrived through one of our own links, and
• a coarse device type (“mobile”, “desktop”) — never your full browser identity string.

To avoid counting the same person twice in one day, our server turns your IP address into a short scrambled code and stores only that. The scrambling key changes every day, so today’s code and tomorrow’s are unrelated: there is no persistent identifier, and no cross-day tracking — not because we choose not to look, but because the data to do it does not exist. We never store your IP address or your browser’s user-agent string, and we never try to work out who you are.

It is aggregate statistics, and it stays on our own servers — it is never sent to an analytics company. Individual visit records are deleted after 90 days; only day-by-day totals are kept beyond that.

Google Analytics — only if you say yes

Our own counting tells us how many people arrived. It cannot tell us which pages, links and campaigns actually help someone understand Tapcord and buy a set of tags, and which quietly waste everyone’s time. For that we use Google Analytics 4, and because it needs cookies to recognise a returning browser, we ask first.

It is off by default. Nothing is stored on your device and no analytics cookie is set unless you accept. If you reject — or simply ignore the banner — it stays that way.

Where it applies, and where it does not:

• Public pages only: the marketing pages, the shop and checkout, the sign-in pages, and pages like this one. The signed-in app is excluded — and so is a tapcord itself, whether you opened it by tapping a tag or someone shared it with you — so what you keep in your tapcords (your photos, notes, dates and places) is never measured this way and never reaches Google. The banner that asks the question follows the same rule: it only appears on those public pages.
• No advertising use: we run no ads, no remarketing audiences and no ad-personalisation signals. Advertising storage stays switched off even when you accept analytics.
• Orders: when an order completes we send Google the fact of the sale and its value, together with a one-way hashed form of your account identifier so a purchase can be joined to the visit that led to it. Google never receives your email address, your name, or anything from your tapcords.

If you accept, Google Analytics sets two cookies on this site: _ga, which tells one browser apart from another for 2 years, and _ga_<container-id>, which holds the state of your current visit for the Tapcord data stream, also for 2 years. Both are listed in the table below. Google acts as our processor for this data.

Your cookie choice

The first time you visit a public page you’ll see a small panel at the bottom of the screen asking about Google Analytics. It does not block the page — you can read and use the site with it open — and Accept and Reject are the same size, the same style and the same single tap, because refusing should never be harder than agreeing. We ask once and then remember your answer.

You can change your mind at any time, right here, with the same one tap — turning it back off takes effect immediately and stops any further measurement in this browser:

Your answer is stored in this browser only, under tapcord:consent — there is no account behind it, so the choice is per browser and per device. Clearing this site’s data erases the answer, and we’ll ask again next time.

What we store

Items marked Analytics (consent) exist only after you accept; everything else is needed to run the service or to remember a preference you set yourself.

If that ever changes

If we ever introduce another non-essential cookie, a further third-party service, or anything that identifies you across sites, the same rule applies: it will be off by default, we’ll ask you first, and we’ll update this page to describe it before it runs. Necessary cookies will always work without consent because the service can’t function without them.

Managing storage

You can clear or block cookies and site data at any time in your browser settings. Blocking the strictly-necessary items may sign you out or stop parts of the service working. Questions? Email hello@tapcord.app.