Cookie notice
Last updated: 17 August 2026. Effective from the same date.
1. What a cookie is
A cookie is a small text file that a website asks your browser to store. It lets the site recognise the same browser on a later visit. Similar technologies — local storage, session storage and the identifiers used by browser notifications — do much the same job, and this notice covers them all.
2. The categories we use
Necessary
These keep the site working and cannot be switched off from here. They remember the choice you made in the cookie notice, keep the interface state consistent while you read, and help protect the site against abuse.
- Cookie choice record, stored in your browser's local storage. Kept until you clear site data.
- Security and load-balancing identifiers set by our hosting provider. Session only, or up to 30 days.
- OneSignal notification identifiers, created only if you allow browser notifications. Kept until you turn notifications off or clear site data.
Analytics
These are set only if you accept them. They tell us which notes are read, how readers move between sections and where pages perform poorly, in aggregate form. We do not use them to identify individual readers.
- Visit and page-view counters. Typically kept up to 13 months.
- Session identifiers used to group requests into one visit. Typically 30 minutes to 24 hours.
Advertising and marketing
These are set only if you accept them. They allow advertising networks to limit how often the same promotion is shown, to measure whether a promoted link to a game was useful, and to make advertising more relevant. Promoted links on this site are always marked, and advertising never affects our editorial notes or the ratings we publish, as set out in our terms.
- Advertising network identifiers. Typically kept up to 13 months.
- Frequency and measurement cookies. Typically kept between 30 and 90 days.
3. How your choice is recorded
On your first visit a notice appears at the bottom of the page with an Accept and a Decline option. The choice is stored in your browser's local storage under the key mergediary-cookie-choice so the notice is not shown again. Declining leaves only the necessary category active.
4. Changing or withdrawing your choice
- Clear site data for mergediary.com in your browser. The notice will appear again on your next visit and you can choose differently.
- Block or delete cookies in your browser settings. Every major browser offers this under privacy or site settings, and most also offer a per-site control.
- Turn browser notifications off for this site at any time in the same settings panel.
- Write to us at editors@mergediary.com if you would like help with any of the above.
Blocking necessary cookies may stop parts of the site from working as intended. Blocking analytics or advertising cookies does not affect your ability to read anything here.
5. Cookies set by others
Some cookies come from the service providers listed in our privacy policy: the hosting and delivery network, OneSignal for notifications, analytics providers and advertising networks. They act as processors for us, and their own notices describe in detail what they store. We never sell the data collected through cookies.
6. Consent and privacy
Where a cookie is not necessary, we set it only after you agree through the notice. That agreement is the basis on which the related personal information is handled, and it can be taken back at any time. The rest of the picture — what we collect, how long we keep it and how to exercise your rights, including complaining to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner — is in the privacy policy.
7. Updates
If the categories or providers change, this page is updated and the date at the top changes with it. Where the change is significant, we will show the notice again so you can review your choice.