Cookies are small text files a website leaves on your device so it can recognise your browser next time. Almost every site uses them. This one uses about as few as a site can while still functioning.
For everything else about your information, see the Privacy Policy.
The ones that have to be there
These keep the site working and cannot be switched off without breaking something.
They remember that you dismissed the cookie notice so it does not reappear on every page, they hold your name and email in the comment form if you asked them to be remembered, they keep you logged in if you happen to be the person who runs the site, and they carry the security token that stops the contact form being abused by bots.
None of them track you anywhere. They expire when you close the browser or after a few months, depending on the cookie.
The ones that count visits
Analytics cookies tell me that a post was opened four hundred times this week, that most of it came from Pinterest, and that almost everyone left at the same paragraph. That last one is the useful part, because it tells me the paragraph is bad.
They record a randomised identifier, not your name. Where the analytics provider offers it, IP addresses are shortened before they are stored. These typically expire within a couple of years and often much sooner.
The ones that come from somewhere else
Some posts embed a pin, a video or a social widget. The moment that content loads, the platform it belongs to can set its own cookies in your browser, whether or not you click anything. The same is true of any advertising running on the site.
Those cookies are set by those companies under their own policies, and they are the ones who can tell you exactly what each does. Blocking third party cookies in your browser stops most of them.
Turning them off
In your browser. Every browser can block cookies, delete the ones already stored, or block third party cookies only, which is the setting most people actually want. Look under Settings, then Privacy. Blocking everything will break the comment form and the cookie notice will return on every page, which is a fair trade if that is what you want.
For analytics specifically. Google publishes a browser add on that opts you out of Google Analytics on every site you visit, not just this one.
For advertising. The industry opt out pages at optout.aboutads.info, optout.networkadvertising.org and youronlinechoices.eu let you switch off interest based advertising across many companies at once.
Do Not Track. If your browser sends a Do Not Track signal, it is respected here. Be aware that most of the wider internet ignores it.
The banner
If you are somewhere that requires a consent banner, such as the UK or the EEA, you will see one on your first visit, and nothing beyond the strictly necessary cookies loads until you choose. You can change your mind later by clearing this site’s cookies in your browser, which makes the banner appear again.
Changes
If the cookies in use change, this page changes with them, and the last updated date at the top moves.
Questions
Email tattoistic@gmail.com and ask.