Cookies Policy

This Cookie Policy explains how Spectrum Search Ltd uses cookies and similar technologies on spectrum-search.com.

Spectrum Search Ltd is a company registered in England and Wales. Our registered office is in Milton Keynes, United Kingdom.

This policy should be read alongside our Privacy Policy, which explains how we collect, use and protect personal data more generally.

Cookies are small text files placed on your device when you visit a website. They are commonly used to make websites work, remember user choices, improve security, and help website owners understand how their sites are used.

Similar technologies, such as scripts, pixels, local storage, session storage and security tokens, can also be used to store or access information on your device or to communicate information about your interaction with a website.

In this policy, we use the word cookies to refer to cookies and similar technologies.

We use cookies and similar technologies for three purposes:

• Essential cookies — to make the website and our cookie consent mechanism work.
• Security technologies — to protect our forms from spam, abuse and automated submissions.
• Analytics cookies — to understand how visitors use our website, but only where you have consented to analytics.

We do not use advertising cookies, retargeting pixels, social media tracking pixels, data-broker enrichment tools, or behavioural profiling technologies.

We do not use Google Tag Manager, HubSpot, LinkedIn Insight Tag, Meta Pixel, Hotjar, Calendly, reCAPTCHA, Google Maps, YouTube/Vimeo embeds, live chat widgets, marketing automation platforms, or third-party applicant tracking widgets on this website.

Essential cookies are required for the website to operate properly. They include cookies that remember your cookie preferences and support the functioning of our consent mechanism.

We use a first-party consent cookie called ss_consent. This stores your cookie consent choice, category preferences, the timestamp of your decision, and the policy version that applied when your choice was made.

The ss_consent cookie is set by Spectrum Search Ltd. It is used only to remember and respect your cookie preferences. It lasts for 12 months, unless you update your cookie choices before then.

Essential cookies do not require consent under applicable cookie laws because they are strictly necessary to provide the service you have requested.

We use Cloudflare Turnstile to protect our forms against spam, abuse and automated submissions.

Turnstile is used only when interacting with forms on our website. It helps us verify that a form submission is genuine and protect the security and availability of our website.

Turnstile may process technical information needed to perform this security check. The verification token used by Turnstile is short-lived, typically around 300 seconds.

We treat Turnstile as strictly necessary because it is required to protect the form submission service requested by the user.

We use Google Analytics 4 to understand how visitors use our website. This helps us improve the website, measure page performance, and understand which content is useful.

Google Analytics is used only with your analytics consent.

Before you consent, Google Analytics operates under Google Consent Mode v2 with analytics storage and advertising-related consent signals set to denied by default. This means no Google Analytics cookies are written before you make a consent choice.

If you reject analytics, Google Analytics remains in denied Consent Mode. No analytics cookies are written and no user-identifiable analytics data is collected, although cookieless consent-state signals may still be sent to Google.

If you accept analytics, Google Analytics may set analytics cookies on your device, including:

• _ga — set by Google Analytics to distinguish visitors for analytics reporting. May last for up to 2 years.
• _ga_XQT92DHKX8 — set by Google Analytics to maintain analytics state for our GA4 property. May last for up to 2 years.
• _gid — may be set by Google Analytics to support short-term analytics reporting. May last for up to 24 hours.

Our Google Analytics implementation is configured to reduce privacy impact. In particular:

• analytics storage is denied by default unless you accept analytics;
• advertising-related consent signals are denied by default;
• we do not use Google Ads;
• we do not use GA4 audiences for advertising;
• Google Signals is disabled;
• ads personalisation is disabled;
• granular location and device data is disabled for UK/EU traffic;
• GA4 data retention is set to 14 months with reset on new activity disabled;
• account-level Google data-sharing settings are disabled.

Google acts as a processor for analytics data where Google Analytics is used.

When you first visit our website, you can choose whether to accept or reject analytics cookies.

You can also change your choice at any time by using the Manage cookies link in the website footer.

You can:

• accept analytics cookies;
• reject analytics cookies;
• change your analytics preference later.

Essential cookies cannot be disabled through our cookie banner because they are required for the website and consent mechanism to work.

If you reject analytics:

• Google Analytics remains in denied Consent Mode;
• no _ga, _ga_XQT92DHKX8 or _gid analytics cookies are written;
• no user-identifiable analytics data is collected;
• cookieless consent-state signals may still be sent to Google;
• your rejection choice is stored in the ss_consent cookie so we can respect your preference.

If you previously accepted analytics and later withdraw your consent, we stop analytics processing from that point.

When you withdraw analytics consent, our website also attempts to delete Google Analytics cookies from your device, including _ga, _ga_XQT92DHKX8 and _gid.

You can also clear cookies manually through your browser settings.

Most browsers allow you to block, delete or manage cookies through browser settings.

Browser controls are separate from the choices you make through our cookie banner. If you block all cookies through your browser, some parts of our website or consent mechanism may not work properly.

Where our website detects a recognised Global Privacy Control signal, we treat this as an instruction to opt out of analytics cookies where technically possible.

This means analytics remains disabled unless you later choose to accept analytics through our cookie preferences tool.

We may update this Cookie Policy from time to time, for example if we change the cookies, analytics tools, security technologies or consent mechanism used on our website.

Where we make a material change, we may ask you to confirm your cookie choices again.

For questions about this Cookie Policy or how we use cookies and similar technologies, please contact Spectrum Search Ltd, B2, Witan Studios, 413 Witan Gate West, MK9 1EJ, United Kingdom.

Email: privacy@spectrum-search.com.