Cookies

What This Site Sets Itself

Nothing. There is no sign-in, no account, no newsletter and no comment box, so there is no server-side session and no cookie for the site to set.

Your game state, statistics, streak and settings are saved using your browser's local storage, not cookies, under keys beginning with guessacountry. Local storage is never attached to your requests, never leaves your device, and is not readable by us or by any third party. Nothing on this page applies to it, and the privacy page covers it instead.

Local storage does hold one further item, which is not game data: your consent answer, under guessacountry_consent. It records which categories you allowed and when you answered, and nothing else. It exists so you are not asked again on every visit and so the banner knows to stay closed, it is never sent with your requests, and clearing it only means the banner asks you once more.

How These Cookies Reach You

One third party can set cookies. It is Google Analytics, and it is listed below with exact names and lifetimes. Nothing else is loaded.

• Google Analytics 4 — offered on every page to count page views and measure load times, and loaded only if you allow it. This is a measurement tool, not an advertising tool, but it does set cookies, and the previous version of this site claimed otherwise.

Blocking it stops it loading, and it is not required for the game to work. We do not use a tag manager, a session replay tool, an A/B testing service, a social media widget, or any other third-party script, so there is nothing else to list.

Analytics Cookies

Set by Google Analytics. All are first-party, so they are scoped to this site only.

• _ga — Distinguishes a returning visitor from a new one, so a single visit is not counted as two. Lifetime: 2 years.
• _ga_<id> — The second half of the same pair, named after this site's own measurement id with its "G-" prefix dropped, so a GA- id of G-XXXXXXX appears here as _ga_XXXXXXX. Together _ga and _ga_<id> tell Google Analytics how many times you have been here and when your current visit started. Lifetime: 2 years.
• _gat — Throttles the number of analytics requests made in a very short space of time, to keep page loads fast. This one is not normally left in place. Lifetime: 1 minute.

Your Choices

A consent banner appears on your first visit, with a switch for analytics. Nothing loads until you answer, and the default is off: the analytics script is not rendered until you allow it, so declining genuinely means no request is made rather than a cookie being written afterwards and ignored. Your answer is kept in local storage, which is not sent with your requests, so recording it does not itself become a tracking cookie.

You can change your mind at any time. In the meantime you can also refuse it here:

• Open Cookie settings in the site footer, which brings the same dialog back with your current answer. Turning analytics off there also clears the _ga cookies already set, rather than only stopping the tag.
• Install the Google Analytics opt-out browser extension — stops Google Analytics for every site you visit, including this one.
• Turn on “Delete cookies and site data when you close all windows” in a strict-tracking or private mode, or clear cookies for this site in your browser settings. Note that clearing them makes analytics count you as a brand new visitor again.

None of this affects play. You lose no game feature by blocking everything on this page.

Consent

Readers in the UK and European Economic Area are entitled to agree to non-essential cookies before they are set, and to withdraw that agreement later. This site asks first: the banner above appears before any third-party script is loaded, records the answer per purpose rather than as a single yes or no, and offers a way back to it from the footer. Consent Mode is not relied on, so a declined visitor is not sent cookieless pings either.

The one place this site stores a preference is local storage, under guessacountry_consent. It holds only which categories you allowed and when you answered — never your game progress, your guesses or anything that identifies you — and it never leaves your device. Clearing it simply means the banner asks you again.

Children

The site is suitable for all ages and asks for no identifying information, so it has no age gate and no way of knowing who a visitor is. Cookies are not used to build a profile of any individual, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children. Because analytics cookies are set automatically for every visitor of any age who allows them, the opt-outs on this page are available to everyone rather than hidden behind a choice only adults can make.

Changes to This Page

This list is updated whenever a provider, a cookie name or a setting changes, before that change goes live. The “last reviewed” date below always reflects the current version. If the site ever adds another analytics or advertising provider, this page will list it here first.