Cookie Policy

A cookie is a small text file that a website asks your browser to keep. It holds a name, a value, an expiry date and the domain that set it. Next time you load a page from that domain, your browser hands the file back, which is how a website recognises that this is the same browser as five minutes ago. That is the whole mechanism. It is a note passed back and forth, nothing more.

Cookies cannot read files off your computer, cannot run programs, and cannot see anything you type on a different website. A cookie set by one domain is not readable by another. They are also not the only way information is kept locally: browsers offer local storage and session storage, which do a similar job with no expiry date attached, and the rules in the UK treat those the same way they treat cookies.

The useful split is between cookies that are strictly necessary for a page you asked for to function, and everything else. Under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, the strictly necessary ones may be set without asking. Everything else needs your consent first, which is why analytics and marketing scripts sit behind a banner and essential ones do not.

This site runs on WordPress. WordPress sets a small number of first-party cookies on its own, without any plugin or tracking script being involved. Most of them only ever appear for someone signed in to the administration area, which means us rather than you.

• wordpress_test_cookie. Set for a moment at the login screen purely to check whether your browser accepts cookies at all. It expires when you close the browser.
• wordpress_logged_in_ followed by a long hash. Set only after a successful login to the admin area. It tells WordPress which account is signed in. If you have never logged in here, you will never have one.
• wp-settings- and wp-settings-time- followed by a user number. These remember admin screen preferences, such as how a list is sorted. Again, admin only, and they typically last a year.

None of these track you between sites, build a profile, or carry anything about which pages you looked at. They exist so the software works. If you are simply reading about a roof lantern installation and never log in, the practical answer is that the site itself is not storing much at all.

The hosting layer can add one more category: a page cache or a security filter sometimes sets a short-lived cookie to decide whether to serve you a stored copy of a page or a fresh one. These are functional, they expire quickly, and they hold a flag rather than an identity.

When you ask us for a quote or use the form on the contact page, the form is not built into the page you are reading. It is embedded from a third-party customer relationship management system, which is where enquiries arrive so that nothing gets lost in an inbox.

Because that form is loaded from another domain, the provider can set its own cookies while the form is on screen. In systems of this kind those cookies usually do three jobs: keep your part-filled answers attached to the right session if the page reloads, stop the same submission being recorded twice if you press the button again, and carry an anti-spam token so automated bots cannot flood the form. Some providers also record which page the form was submitted from, so we know whether an enquiry came from a guide or from a service page.

What we receive is what you typed: your name, your contact details, your address or postcode, and what you have told us about the roof. We use it to reply to you and to arrange a survey. The provider processes it on our behalf under their own terms. If you would prefer to leave no trace of a form at all, email info@skylightsonsea.co.uk directly or telephone instead, and the embed never loads.

Analytics is the category we treat as optional. If it is switched on for this site, it will be a standard measurement platform recording anonymous, aggregate information: how many people arrived, which pages held their attention, whether they came from a search engine or a link, and whether they were on a phone or a laptop. It is used to work out which of the guides are actually useful and which need rewriting.

Where a platform of that kind is in use, it commonly sets a first-party cookie to distinguish one visitor from another and a second one to group page views into a single session. Lifetimes vary by platform, with two years being a common maximum for the visitor cookie and around half an hour of inactivity ending a session. It does not record your name, and it is not used to advertise to you afterwards.

You do not have to take our word for whether it is switched on today. You can look. In Chrome or Edge, press F12, open the Application tab and select Cookies in the left-hand panel. In Firefox, press F12 and open the Storage tab. Safari needs the Develop menu enabled in Settings first, then Web Inspector. Whatever the site has set will be listed there by name, with its expiry date, and that list is the honest answer at any given moment.

We do not run advertising or retargeting pixels. There is no social media tracking script embedded in these pages. We do not sell, rent or pass on anything collected here to a data broker or a lead-generation network, and enquiries you send us are not shared with other installers.

Being a small specialist business makes that an easy position to hold. The site exists to explain how glazing specification and orientation work across south Essex, and to let people who want a survey reach us. It is not a data-gathering exercise with a business attached, and there is nothing further along the funnel that would benefit from following you around the internet.

Every browser lets you block cookies, delete them, or set rules per site. Blocking everything will break parts of many sites, though as it happens it will do very little damage here beyond the enquiry form, which may stop working.

• Chrome: Settings, then Privacy and security, then Third-party cookies and Site settings. Use the padlock icon in the address bar to change the rule for one site only.
• Safari on Mac: Safari menu, Settings, Privacy. Intelligent Tracking Prevention is on by default and already limits cross-site cookies heavily.
• Safari on iPhone or iPad: the Settings app, then Apps, Safari, and the privacy options near the bottom.
• Firefox: Settings, Privacy and Security, Enhanced Tracking Protection. Strict mode blocks most third-party storage.
• Edge: Settings, Cookies and site permissions, then Manage and delete cookies and site data.
• Android Chrome: the three-dot menu, Settings, Site settings, Cookies.

Private or incognito windows are a quick alternative. Cookies still get set while you browse, but the whole set is discarded when you close the window, so nothing carries over to your next visit. Most browsers also offer a Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signal, which broadcasts a preference that responsible analytics configurations will honour.

Clearing cookies afterwards is worth knowing about too. Deleting them removes any stored preference, including a previous choice to refuse optional cookies, so a consent banner will normally appear again on your next visit. That is the system working correctly rather than ignoring you.

If we add a tool to the site, change the form provider, or switch analytics on or off, this page gets updated to match. We would rather amend a paragraph here than leave a vague catch-all sentence covering things that might one day happen. There is no version history published, so if you need to know what was in place on a particular date, ask and we will tell you.

You have the right to ask what personal information we hold about you, to have it corrected, and to have it deleted. For an enquiry you sent through the form, that means the record in the CRM, and we will remove it on request unless we are keeping it because there is live work in progress. Write to info@skylightsonsea.co.uk with the address the enquiry related to and we will deal with it.

Anything you want to raise about privacy, cookies or your data goes to the same place: info@skylightsonsea.co.uk, or 01702 898232. If you want to know more about who we are and how we work before you send anything at all, the about page covers it, and the homepage explains why orientation and glass specification sit at the centre of everything we do.