Cookie & Browser Storage Policy

This site sets no advertising cookies, no cross-site tracking pixels and no third-party analytics identifiers. What it does use is local storage — a browser feature that keeps a few values on your own device and never transmits them to us automatically.

A cookie is sent to the server with every request, which is why cookies are the standard tool for tracking. Local storage stays in the browser: it is readable only by pages on this domain, and only when you have one of those pages open. Because nothing here needs to identify you across requests, we use local storage and avoid cookies entirely for site functionality.

If a future feature requires a genuine cookie — for example account sessions or payment processing — this page will be updated before that feature ships, and any non-essential cookie will be opt-in.

None of these values are read by advertising networks, and none are shared with third parties.

Fonts and styles are served from this site's own bundle rather than a third-party CDN, so loading a page does not disclose your IP address to a font provider. If we later embed video players, maps or social widgets, those providers may set their own storage; any such embed will be disclosed here and loaded only after you interact with it.

You can see and delete everything this site stores without contacting us. In Chrome, Edge or Firefox open developer tools, choose the Application or Storage panel, expand Local Storage and select this domain. Deleting the entries resets your Academy progress and any saved form confirmations — nothing else breaks.

Clearing site data through your browser's privacy settings, or browsing in a private window, achieves the same result. Blocking local storage entirely is also supported: forms still submit, but progress tracking and confirmations will not persist between visits.

Because we run no behavioural tracking, there is nothing for a Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control signal to switch off. We honour those signals by design rather than by configuration.

Storing nothing in your browser is not the same as knowing nothing. Like any web server, ours receives your IP address, the page requested, the time, and the user-agent string your browser sends, and it may retain that in short-lived operational logs for security and troubleshooting. Those logs are not linked to the local storage values above, are not used to build a profile, and are described in the Privacy Policy.

Live market figures on the prices page are fetched by our server, not by your browser, so requesting them does not expose your IP address to the data provider.

Under the ePrivacy rules, consent is required for storage that is not strictly necessary for a service you asked for. Everything listed above is either the direct result of an action you took — submitting a form, marking a lesson complete — or is required to show you the state of that action afterwards, so it runs on the strictly-necessary basis and does not depend on your consent.

We still show a notice on your first visit, because you are entitled to know what is stored before it happens. Choosing Essential only or Accept records a single value, tgc-consent, in local storage so the notice is not repeated. No analytics, advertising or profiling technology loads under either choice, because none exists on this site.

You can reopen the notice at any time with the Cookie settings link in the footer, and clearing site data resets it entirely. If non-essential storage is ever introduced, it will be off by default, gated behind an explicit opt-in in that same notice, and described here first.

Because nothing is tied to an account, everything above is local to one browser on one device. Academy progress recorded on your laptop will not appear on your phone, and progress recorded in a private window disappears when the window closes. Shared or kiosk machines will show whatever the previous user left behind, so clear site data if you are working on one.

In-app browsers — the ones inside messaging and social apps — often restrict or wipe local storage aggressively. If progress refuses to stick, open the site in a normal browser rather than assuming the feature is broken.

Any change to what we store will be reflected here with a new version number and date. Material changes affecting existing visitors will also be noted on the affected page.

Write to privacy@thegoldcongress.com or use the contact form.