Cookies Policy
Last updated: 17 October 2026
Website: jaymes.io
Data controller: Jaymes Payten
Cookies, cassette tapes, and other things that crumble under pressure
Remember when your mum hid the good biscuits in a Quality Street tin, only to fill it with sewing supplies? This policy contains considerably fewer disappointments. It tells you what jaymes.io stores in your browser, why, and how to say no.
The short version: Essential website technologies may be needed to make things work. Optional analytics won't run until you consent. You can reject them and still read Stories. No advertising trackers are planned for launch. And no, a cookie is not a secret cheat code that unlocks the final level of Pac-Man.
Who's minding the biscuit tin?
jaymes.io is operated by Jaymes Payten, who is responsible for decisions about the personal information processed through this website.
Privacy enquiries: [email protected]
If you've got a question about cookies, privacy, or why anyone thought chocolate-scented soap was a good idea, that email is the place to start. I can answer the first two. The third remains one of the great mysteries of the 1980s.
What on earth is a cookie?
A cookie is a small piece of information that a website can ask your browser to store. Websites may also use Local Storage, Session Storage, and similar technologies to remember settings, maintain sessions, or measure usage.
They're not edible, despite what the name suggests. If your Commodore 64 had asked to store a cookie in 1984, you'd probably have checked the disk drive for digestive crumbs.
Cookies can be set by jaymes.io (first-party) or, where enabled, by an external service (third-party). Some disappear when your browser session ends. Others remain until they expire or you clear them.
The three cookie categories
Necessary
These support essential functionality such as saving cookie preferences, keeping accounts securely signed in once Community launches, and protecting forms against abuse. Where a technology is genuinely necessary and applicable law permits, it may operate without optional consent.
Think of these as the batteries in your Walkman. Without them, you're just wearing very expensive earmuffs.
Analytics
With your permission, analytics help me understand which Stories people read, how visitors arrive, and whether the website is behaving itself. These are optional and must remain inactive until you opt in.
Unlike the high-score table on an arcade cabinet, analytics aren't intended to publicly identify who visited which page.
Advertising
Advertising trackers are not planned for launch. If they're introduced later, I'll explain what they do, update this policy, and request any consent required before activating them.
Nobody needs to be followed around the internet like a relentless 1980s double-glazing salesman.
The actual cookie inventory
Great Scott! A cookie table without made-up cookies. Doc Brown may have managed time travel using a flux capacitor, but I refuse to invent browser storage names and pretend they're real.
The following table is an implementation inventory, not a claim that every item is currently present in visitors' browsers.
| Technology | Provider | Category | Purpose | Status | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Consent preference record (jio_consent, Local Storage) |
jaymes.io | Necessary | Remember whether you've accepted, rejected, or customised optional cookies | In use | Until you clear it, or until this policy changes and you're asked again |
| Authentication/session storage | jaymes.io / authentication provider | Necessary | Keep members signed in securely and protect account sessions | Planned for Community, not in use yet | Confirmed here when Community launches |
| Form/security storage, if used | jaymes.io / security provider | Necessary, if strictly necessary | Support form security and prevent abuse | Not in use yet | Confirmed here if it's ever used |
_ga |
Google Analytics | Analytics | Distinguish browsers for statistical measurement | Not in use yet. Only set if GA4 is switched on and you accept analytics | Up to 2 years under standard GA4 settings, confirmed here when GA4 goes live |
_ga_<measurement-id> |
Google Analytics | Analytics | Maintain GA4 session-related state | Not in use yet. Only set if GA4 is switched on and you accept analytics | Up to 2 years under standard GA4 settings, confirmed here when GA4 goes live |
| Advertising cookies | Not applicable at launch | Advertising | Not applicable | Not planned for launch | Not applicable |
Essential cookies and the Commodore 64 survival kit
Necessary technologies may be used to:
- Remember your cookie preferences.
- Keep essential website functions working.
- Secure account sessions once registration is available.
- Help protect forms and accounts from misuse.
You generally can't switch off strictly necessary technologies using the site's optional-cookie controls, but your browser may allow you to block or clear them. Doing so can affect functionality.
It's rather like pulling the power lead out of a Commodore 64 midway through loading Impossible Mission. You can do it, but don't expect the mission to go particularly well.
Analytics and the Pac-Man maze
Analytics are optional. If you agree, I intend to use them to understand broad website activity, including page views, referral sources, device/browser categories, and interactions with Stories.
This helps me spot whether readers are finding their way around or wandering the site like Pac-Man after someone nicked all the power pellets.
Analytics shouldn't activate before the required consent. If you reject analytics, the site must honour that choice. You can still read Stories and use essential features.
Advertising cookies and the invisible man
There are no advertising trackers in the initial plan. That means no planned advertising-cookie deployment merely because an advertising category exists in a consent interface.
If I later add advertising measurement or remarketing services, I'll update the inventory, describe the providers and purposes, and apply appropriate consent controls first.
Remember those giant shoulder pads that made everyone look as though they were smuggling a small television under each arm? Advertising tracking shouldn't be similarly impossible to ignore.
Google Analytics 4
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the intended analytics service for jaymes.io. Its property and measurement configuration must be confirmed before this section is treated as a statement of a live integration.
When enabled with your consent, GA4 may use cookies such as _ga and a property-specific _ga_... cookie to support measurement. The actual cookie names, configuration, and lifetimes will be confirmed in the live inventory.
I want to know whether a Story is useful, not recreate a 1980s neighbourhood watch operation with binoculars, a clipboard, and a suspicious interest in who bought a new video recorder.
Google Tag Manager
jaymes.io has a Google Tag Manager container configured: GTM-KZP3ZWMC.
Tag Manager helps organise website tags. It is not a blanket permission slip for everything deployed through it. Any analytics or advertising technology requiring consent must be blocked until the appropriate choice has been made.
Think of Tag Manager as the remote control for your family's 1987 television. Just because it has 43 buttons doesn't mean every button should launch something.
Your choices, no joystick required
The cookie controls are designed to offer three clear options:
- Accept all: allow the optional categories actually available on the website.
- Reject: decline optional cookies and similar technologies.
- Choose: select optional categories individually.
Necessary technologies remain available where needed for core functions. Optional categories must not be pre-ticked, and rejecting them must be as straightforward as accepting them.
No hidden level, no Konami Code, and absolutely no requirement to defeat the final boss of Ghosts 'n Goblins just to say no.
Changing your mind
You should be able to reopen the consent controls using Cookie settings in the footer and change your choices at any time.
If you withdraw consent, the website must stop future optional tracking covered by that consent and clear its own optional storage where technically appropriate. Withdrawal doesn't retrospectively make earlier lawful processing unlawful.
Changing your mind is allowed. Just ask everyone who bought a Betamax player in 1982.
Browser controls and the Betamax problem
Most browsers let you view, block, or delete cookies and other site data. The steps depend on your browser and device.
Clearing site data may remove saved consent choices, meaning you'll be asked again. Blocking necessary storage can interfere with login, security, or forms.
It's a bit like taping over the wrong VHS cassette. You may have meant to clear out an old recording of Top of the Pops, but suddenly Dad's prized recording of the 1986 World Cup has vanished. Choose carefully.
Third-party technology
Depending on what's deployed, third-party services may help deliver the website, protect it, provide sign-in, or measure traffic. Hostinger-hosted infrastructure and Cloudflare are part of the site's web infrastructure. Google Analytics 4 is intended for consent-based measurement, and Google sign-in is planned for member accounts.
A third-party service may process information under its own privacy documentation. Its use doesn't automatically mean it sets cookies; the production audit must establish which cookies or browser-storage items actually appear.
Unlike Joan Collins in Dynasty, third parties don't get to storm into the room, throw a drink, and take whatever they fancy. Their roles and applicable safeguards need to be explained.
How long cookies hang around
Session cookies generally expire when the browser session ends. Persistent cookies or Local Storage may last until a set expiry, deletion by the site, or manual clearing by you.
The actual durations for jaymes.io must be documented in the verified inventory in Section 4. Any GA4 lifetime stated there must reflect the site's configuration rather than a generic assumption.
Some 1980s things should have expired sooner. Perms. Shell suits. Chocolate-scented soap. Cookie retention, fortunately, is something we can specify properly.
Cookies and personal information
Cookie identifiers, IP addresses, and associated usage information can sometimes count as personal data. Where they do, their processing is governed by applicable data protection law and the Privacy Policy.
That policy explains the legal bases for processing, your rights, retention, service providers, international transfers, and how to contact me.
No, putting information on a floppy disk labelled TOP SECRET and hiding it behind a Rubik's Cube does not qualify as a modern security policy.
Updates, remixes, and the extended 12-inch version
I'll update this Cookies Policy if the website introduces or removes cookies, changes analytics or consent arrangements, adds advertising technology, or otherwise materially changes how browser storage is used.
The Last updated date will change when the policy changes. Material changes may also require renewed consent.
Think of it as the 12-inch remix of a perfectly good 1984 single. Only this time, the extended version should actually tell you something useful.
Contact details
Questions about cookies or privacy? Contact:
Jaymes Payten
Email: [email protected]
I can't promise to solve the mystery of why the Sinclair C5 existed, or why everyone in the 1980s owned a glass coffee table with brass legs. But I can take your privacy question seriously.