Cookie Policy
A complete list of what Merik Network Co stores on your device, why, and for how long. You can change your choice at any time, from this page.
The short version
- We set four cookies of our own. All four are strictly necessary.
- We run no analytics. Not Google Analytics, not Facebook, not anything.
- Adverts on some free pages use Google cookies, and only after you agree.
- Decline and the site works normally. You just see non-personalised adverts, or none.
- Your choice is remembered for 6 months and you can change it whenever you like.
1. What a cookie is
A cookie is a small text file a website asks your browser to keep and hand back on your next request. That is the entire mechanism. It is how a website remembers that you are signed in between one page and the next, because otherwise every page load would look like a stranger arriving.
Two distinctions matter for what follows:
- First-party cookies are set by this site. Third-party cookies are set by another company whose code runs on a page here. Ours are listed in section 3. The only third party is Google, in section 4.
- Session cookies are deleted when you close your browser. Persistent cookies survive until they expire or you delete them. The table in section 3 says which is which.
2. Your choice, and changing it
On your first visit you are asked whether to allow advertising cookies. Nothing optional is set before you answer, and closing the banner without choosing is treated as a decline rather than as agreement.
Your answer is stored in a cookie called mk_cookie_consent for six months. You can change it here, right now:
Your current choice
Checking what you chose...
Changing this reloads the page so the change takes effect immediately.
3. Strictly necessary cookies
These four make the site function. They cannot be switched off from the banner, because without them you could not sign in, and a consent banner that forgets your answer would ask you the same question forever. None of them is used for advertising and none is shared with anyone.
| Name | Set by | Purpose | Lasts |
|---|---|---|---|
PHPSESSID |
This site | Identifies your browsing session so you stay signed in from one page to the next, and carries security tokens that stop a form on another site being submitted as you. It holds a random identifier, nothing about you. | Until you close the browser |
mr_rm |
This site | The "keep me signed in" token for member accounts. Only set if you tick that box when signing in. | 30 days |
mk_adm_rm |
This site | The same thing for administrator accounts. Only ever set on an admin sign-in, so if you are not an administrator here you will never have it. | 30 days |
mk_cookie_consent |
This site | Remembers whether you allowed or declined advertising cookies, so you are not asked on every page. Contains one word and a version number. | 6 months |
All four are marked HttpOnly where the browser does not need to read them, and
SameSite=Lax, which stops them being sent when another website makes a request to us.
On the live site they are also marked Secure, so they only travel over an encrypted
connection.
4. Advertising cookies
Some free pages carry adverts from Google AdSense. That is how the free tier is paid for. Adverts appear below the content, never inside a paid guide, and never on a page you paid to read.
If you allow them, Google may set cookies including the following. This list is Google's to change, and the authoritative version is on their own site:
| Name | Set by | Purpose | Typical life |
|---|---|---|---|
__gads | Measures how many times an advert is shown and limits repeats | 13 months | |
__gpi | Advert personalisation and frequency capping | 13 months | |
IDE, test_cookie | DoubleClick (Google) | Measures advert effectiveness and personalises what you are shown | Up to 13 months |
NID | Preferences and personalisation across Google services | 6 months |
What Google does with this data is governed by Google's own policy, not by us. We receive money for adverts shown and clicked. We do not receive your browsing history, and we cannot see which adverts you personally were shown.
You can also turn off personalised advertising across all of Google at adssettings.google.com, which applies whatever you choose here.
5. Analytics: we do not use any
There is no Google Analytics on this site. No Facebook pixel, no TikTok pixel, no Hotjar, no heatmap tool, no session recorder, no A/B testing service, and no advertising network other than AdSense.
This is worth stating plainly because it is unusual, and because most cookie policies list a dozen trackers under "we may use". We do not have a "may". What runs here is what is on this page.
We do keep basic server logs, which record the page requested, the time, and a truncated IP address. Those are not cookies, they are not linked to your account, and they are covered in the Privacy Notice.
6. Local storage, which is not a cookie
Some preferences are kept in your browser's local storage instead of a cookie. The difference matters: local storage is never transmitted to us. It sits on your device and only the page you are looking at can read it.
| Key | What it remembers |
|---|---|
mk-theme, pg_theme | Whether you chose light or dark, on the site and in the Playground |
mk_settings_tab | Which settings tab an administrator last had open |
mk_install_dismissed, mk_install_dismissed_ver | That you dismissed the "install the app" prompt, so it stops asking |
mk_app_ver | Which version of the installable app you have, so we can tell you when there is a newer one |
community_search_history, trending_searches | Your recent searches in the community, shown back to you as suggestions |
Clearing your browser's site data removes all of it. Nothing here identifies you and none of it leaves your device.
7. Third parties
Besides Google's adverts, a few other services are involved in running the site. Most set no cookies at all in your browser, because your browser never talks to them directly.
| Service | What it does | Cookies in your browser? |
|---|---|---|
| Paystack | Card and mobile money payments | Only on their checkout page, during a payment |
| Safaricom M-Pesa | M-Pesa payments | No. The prompt arrives on your phone, not in your browser |
| NOWPayments | Cryptocurrency payments | Only on their checkout page, during a payment |
| Cloudflare CDN | Serves the icon font the site uses | No |
| Google Fonts | Serves typefaces | No |
| IONOS | Hosting and email | No |
When you are actually paying, you are briefly on the payment provider's own page, under their policy. We never see your card number or your M-Pesa PIN.
8. The legal basis
Under the Data Protection Act 2019 and the Data Protection (General) Regulations 2021, storing information on your device that is not strictly necessary requires your consent.
- Strictly necessary cookies (section 3) do not need consent, because without them the service you asked for cannot be delivered. You cannot stay signed in without a session cookie.
- Advertising cookies (section 4) require your consent, which is why we ask, why the default is off, and why declining is exactly as easy as accepting.
Consent must be freely given, specific, informed and as easy to withdraw as to give. That is why the banner has a Decline button of equal prominence rather than a greyed-out link, why nothing loads before you answer, and why section 2 lets you change your mind on this page in one click.
9. Controlling cookies in your browser
Your browser can block or delete cookies regardless of anything on this site. Doing so is your right, and blocking all cookies will sign you out and keep you signed out, because the session cookie is what keeps you in.
| Browser | Where to look |
|---|---|
| Chrome | Settings, then Privacy and security, then Third-party cookies |
| Firefox | Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Cookies and Site Data |
| Safari | Settings, then Safari, then Privacy & Security |
| Edge | Settings, then Cookies and site permissions |
| Samsung Internet | Settings, then Sites and downloads, then Manage cookies |
10. Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control
If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, we treat it as a decline and do not load advertising cookies, whether or not you have used the banner. You do not need to tell us twice.
The older Do Not Track header has no agreed meaning and most sites ignore it. We treat it the same way as GPC, which is to say we honour it, because a person who set it clearly meant something by it.
11. Children
The service is not aimed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly show personalised advertising to anyone we know to be a child. If you are a parent and believe your child has been using an account here, write to us and we will close it and delete the data.
12. Changes to this policy
If we add a service that sets cookies, this page changes before it goes live, and if the new cookies are not strictly necessary, we will ask for your consent again rather than assume the old answer covers them.
The consent cookie carries a version number for exactly this reason. When the version changes, your previous answer stops counting and the banner reappears.
13. Contact
If something in your browser's cookie list is not on this page, we want to know. That is a bug in the policy or a bug in the site, and either way it needs fixing.
Questions about cookies
Tell us the cookie name and the page you saw it on, and we will explain it or remove it.