Small print
Cookie Policy
In force from 2 September 2026. Published by Lauren Bennett, 35 Rue Beaubien E, Montréal, QC H2S 1P7, Canada.
1. The short version
ShardTale sets no cookies of its own. It writes a single entry into your browser's session storage, and only if you press one of the two buttons on the notice at the foot of the page. Separately, Cloudflare — the delivery and security network that sits in front of this site — may set strictly technical cookies of its own and may add its own performance measurement script to the page it delivers. Everything that can appear on your device is listed in section 3.
There is no analytics account attached to this site, no advertising tag, no remarketing pixel, no social plug-in and no cross-site identifier. Nothing on these pages follows you to another site.
2. Why the notice appears at all
The notice exists so that the position is stated plainly rather than assumed, and so that you can dismiss it and read in peace. Because this site sets nothing that needs consent, both buttons have the same practical effect: the notice closes and your choice is remembered for the rest of the visit. Declining does not switch anything off, because there is nothing of ours to switch off. The Cloudflare cookies described below are set by the network provider for delivery and security and are not controlled by that button.
3. What can be stored on your device
| Name | Category | Purpose | Duration | Party |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| st_banner_v1 | Preference | Records that you answered the notice at the foot of the page, so it is not shown again during the visit. Session storage, not a cookie. Holds one word and no identifier. | Until the browser tab is closed | First party (this site) |
| __cf_bm | Security | Bot management. Set by Cloudflare to tell automated traffic from ordinary readers and to keep the site reachable during an attack. | About thirty minutes | Third party (Cloudflare, Inc.) |
| cf_clearance | Security | Set by Cloudflare only if a connection has been shown a challenge page, to record that the challenge was passed. Most readers never receive it. | Up to one year, and only after a challenge | Third party (Cloudflare, Inc.) |
4. The performance beacon
Cloudflare offers a small measurement script that can be inserted into delivered pages to report loading timings such as Core Web Vitals. Where it is active on the account serving this site, it is added by the network provider at delivery time rather than written into the source of these pages. It reports aggregate loading behaviour to that provider; the operator of this site sees only summary figures and no reader is identified through them. It is mentioned here because it is honest to describe what the network in front of the site can add, even where the source files contain no such script.
5. How to control what is stored
- Clearing site data for shardtale.com in your browser removes the session entry and any Cloudflare cookie at once.
- Closing the tab discards the session entry by itself, with no action needed.
- Every current browser lets you refuse third-party cookies, refuse all cookies, or open the page in a private window that discards everything on exit.
- Blocking the Cloudflare security cookie is possible, but a challenge page may then appear more often, since the network has no record that the connection was already checked.
No feature of this site breaks if you block everything. The pages are plain documents and read correctly with storage disabled and with scripting switched off entirely; in that case the notice simply never appears.
6. Changes to this page
If the site ever begins to store something else, this page is rewritten before that happens and the date at the top is moved forward. There is no earlier version in circulation.
7. Questions
Write to desk@shardtale.com or to the postal address above. The Privacy Policy covers personal information in general, and the Terms of Use cover the site as a whole.