Cookie Policy

Effective Date: January 14, 2026
Last Updated: January 14, 2026

What Are Cookies? (The Digital Kind, Not the Delicious Kind)

Let’s start with the basics: cookies are small text files that websites store on your device (computer, phone, tablet) when you visit them. They help websites remember information about your visit—like your preferences, login status, or what’s in your shopping cart.

Think of cookies like a website’s memory. Without them, every time you visited a page, the website would treat you like a complete stranger.

Important note: This policy is about digital cookies (tracking technology), not recipe cookies (which we have plenty of content about elsewhere on our site!).

Why We Use Cookies

We use cookies on Cookies Free Gluten to:

  • Remember your preferences: Keep you logged in, remember your dietary filters, save your favorite recipes
  • Improve website functionality: Make the site work properly, load faster, and provide a better experience
  • Understand how people use our site: See which recipes are popular, which pages need improvement, where people get stuck
  • Personalize your experience: Show you recipe recommendations based on what you’ve viewed or saved
  • Deliver relevant ads: Show you ads related to your interests (if you haven’t opted out)
  • Measure advertising effectiveness: Understand which partnerships drive traffic and how readers discover us

We try to use cookies responsibly and only collect what actually helps us serve you better.

Types of Cookies We Use

Essential Cookies (Strictly Necessary)

These cookies are required for basic website functionality. Without them, core features won’t work properly.

What they do:

  • Keep you logged into your account as you browse
  • Remember items in your shopping cart
  • Enable security features and fraud prevention
  • Remember your cookie consent preferences
  • Maintain website performance and stability

Can you disable them? Technically yes, but the website won’t work properly without them. These don’t track you for advertising—they just make the site function.

Duration: Mostly session cookies (deleted when you close your browser), some persist longer for login convenience.

Functional Cookies (Preference and Feature Cookies)

These cookies enhance functionality and personalization but aren’t strictly necessary.

What they do:

  • Remember your dietary preferences (e.g., “show me only dairy-free recipes”)
  • Save your recipe format preferences (standard vs. metric measurements)
  • Remember your location for region-specific content
  • Store accessibility settings (text size, contrast preferences)
  • Remember whether you’ve seen pop-ups or announcements

Can you disable them? Yes, though you’ll have to reset preferences each visit and may miss personalized features.

Duration: Usually 6-12 months

Specific cookies we use:

  • user_preferences: Stores dietary filters and display preferences
  • location_region: Remembers your general location for relevant content
  • viewed_recipes: Tracks recently viewed recipes for your convenience
  • popup_dismissed: Remembers which announcements you’ve closed

Analytics and Performance Cookies

These help us understand how people use our website so we can improve it.

What they do:

  • Track which pages are visited most frequently
  • Measure how long people spend on pages
  • Identify where people enter and exit the site
  • See which recipes are most popular
  • Understand search terms people use
  • Identify technical problems or slow-loading pages

Can you disable them? Yes, though this means we have less data to improve the website experience.

Duration: Typically 24 months

Specific analytics tools we use:

Google Analytics: Our primary analytics tool, tracking overall website traffic and user behavior. Google Analytics collects:

  • Pages visited and time spent
  • Traffic sources (how you found us)
  • Device and browser information
  • General location (city/country level)
  • On-site search queries

You can opt out of Google Analytics using Google’s opt-out browser add-on: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

Cloudflare Analytics: Provides website performance monitoring and security analytics. Cloudflare analytics are privacy-focused and don’t track individual users across sites.

Hotjar (occasionally used): Heat mapping and session recording to understand how people interact with specific pages. When active, Hotjar may record anonymized click patterns and scrolling behavior. We use this sparingly for specific improvement projects.

Advertising and Marketing Cookies

These cookies track your browsing to show relevant advertisements and measure ad campaign effectiveness.

What they do:

  • Display ads based on your interests and browsing history
  • Limit how many times you see the same ad
  • Measure whether you clicked on ads or made purchases from them
  • Enable retargeting (showing you our ads on other websites after you visit ours)
  • Track effectiveness of our social media and paid advertising campaigns

Can you disable them? Yes, and we provide multiple ways to opt out below.

Duration: Usually 6-24 months

Specific advertising platforms we use:

Google Ads/AdSense: Displays relevant ads on our website and enables retargeting campaigns. Google uses cookies to:

  • Show ads based on your interests
  • Prevent showing the same ad repeatedly
  • Measure ad performance
  • Enable retargeting across Google’s Display Network

Opt out: https://adssettings.google.com/

Facebook Pixel/Meta Pixel: Tracks conversions from Facebook/Instagram ads and enables custom audience targeting. The Facebook Pixel helps us:

  • Measure effectiveness of Facebook ad campaigns
  • Create lookalike audiences
  • Retarget website visitors on Facebook and Instagram
  • Track which content drives traffic from social media

Opt out: https://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=ads

Pinterest Tag: Tracks activity from Pinterest and enables Pinterest ad targeting.

Amazon Associates: Tracks referrals to Amazon from our affiliate links.

Social Media Cookies

When we embed social media content (Instagram photos, Facebook posts, TikTok videos, YouTube videos), those platforms may set their own cookies.

What they do:

  • Enable sharing content to social media
  • Track your social media interactions with our content
  • Personalize your social media feeds based on our content you’ve viewed
  • Measure social media engagement and referral traffic

Platforms that may set cookies:

  • Facebook/Instagram
  • TikTok
  • Pinterest
  • YouTube
  • Twitter/X

Can you disable them? Yes, through your social media platform privacy settings and browser settings.

Third-Party Cookies

Many of our cookies are set by third-party services we use (analytics providers, advertising networks, social media platforms). We don’t control these third-party cookies directly—they’re governed by the respective third parties’ privacy policies.

Major third parties that may set cookies:

  • Google (Analytics, AdSense, YouTube)
  • Facebook/Meta (Pixel, embedded content)
  • Cloudflare (Performance and security)
  • Stripe (Payment processing)
  • Mailchimp (Email marketing)
  • Amazon (Affiliate tracking)
  • Pinterest (Analytics and embedded content)
  • TikTok (Embedded videos)

We carefully select third-party partners and review their privacy practices, but we recommend reading their policies directly for complete information about their data handling.

How to Control and Delete Cookies

You have several options for managing cookies:

Browser Settings

All modern browsers let you control cookies. You can:

  • Block all cookies (not recommended—many sites won’t work properly)
  • Block third-party cookies only (good balance of privacy and functionality)
  • Delete cookies after each browsing session
  • View and delete existing cookies
  • Set exceptions for specific websites

How to manage cookies in popular browsers:

Chrome: Settings > Privacy and Security > Cookies and other site data
Firefox: Settings > Privacy & Security > Cookies and Site Data
Safari: Preferences > Privacy > Cookies and website data
Edge: Settings > Cookies and site permissions > Cookies and site data

Note: Cookie settings are browser-specific. If you use multiple browsers, configure each one.

Opt-Out Tools and Settings

Google Ads Settings: Control ad personalization
https://adssettings.google.com/

Facebook Ad Preferences: Manage Facebook/Instagram ad targeting
https://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=ads

Network Advertising Initiative Opt-Out: Opt out of many ad networks at once
https://optout.networkadvertising.org/

Digital Advertising Alliance Opt-Out: Another multi-network opt-out tool
https://optout.aboutads.info/

Google Analytics Opt-Out: Browser add-on to disable Google Analytics
https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

Do Not Track (DNT)

Some browsers offer “Do Not Track” settings. We respect DNT signals and limit tracking when DNT is enabled, though not all third-party services honor DNT.

Cookie Consent Management

When you first visit Cookies Free Gluten, you’ll see a cookie consent banner. You can:

  • Accept all cookies
  • Reject non-essential cookies
  • Customize your preferences (choose which types to allow)

Your choice is stored in a cookie (ironically) so we remember your preferences. You can change your settings anytime by clicking the “Cookie Preferences” link in our website footer.

Cookies and Personal Information

Most cookies contain anonymized identifiers rather than personally identifiable information like your name or email address. However, combined with other data, cookies can be used to identify individuals.

What cookies typically contain:

  • Random strings of letters and numbers (unique identifiers)
  • Session IDs
  • Timestamps
  • Preference settings
  • Anonymized behavioral data

What cookies typically DON’T contain:

  • Your name
  • Email address
  • Password
  • Physical address
  • Payment information

When combined with account information, analytics data from cookies may be associated with your identity. We treat this combined data as personal information under our Privacy Policy.

Mobile Apps and SDKs

If you use our mobile app (when available), similar tracking technologies called SDKs (Software Development Kits) perform functions similar to browser cookies. These are governed by this Cookie Policy and our Privacy Policy.

We’ll update this policy occasionally as our practices evolve or new technologies emerge. Check the “Last Updated” date at the top to see when changes were made.

For significant changes, we’ll display a notice on our website or send email notifications to account holders.

Questions About Cookies?

If you have questions about our cookie practices:

Email: [email protected]
Response time: Within 48 hours

Mail:
Privacy Officer
LLC Cookies Free Gluten
123 Gluten Free Way, Suite 200
Portland, OR 97204

Summary (TL;DR)

We use cookies to make our website work properly, understand how people use it, personalize your experience, and show relevant ads. You can control cookies through browser settings, opt-out tools, and our cookie consent preferences. Essential cookies are necessary for functionality, while others are optional. We respect your privacy choices and provide multiple ways to limit tracking.