Cookie Policy

1. What are cookies?

In plain terms: we set two first-party cookies of our own. One remembers your consent choice; the other records which campaign brought you here, and exists only if you opt in to marketing cookies. Your signed-in session and settings live in browser storage, not cookies. Our consent-gated tag loader runs on public marketing pages and waits for a granting choice before loading Google Tag Manager. That control does not establish that every separately delivered analytics service is consent-gated; see the verification limits in section 5.

Cookies are small text files that a website stores in your browser when you visit. They help the site remember information about your visit, such as a preference or a consent choice, so the experience is consistent across pages and visits.

In addition to traditional cookies, we use related technologies including local storage and session storage. Where this policy says “cookies”, it covers all of these technologies; where the difference matters, we say which one is used.

2. How we use cookies

SearchChamp uses cookies and browser storage for the following purposes:

• Consent: a first-party cookie records the choice you make in our consent banner, so we can honour it and stop asking you (section 3).
• Authentication and preferences: your signed-in session tokens and interface settings are kept in browser storage, not cookies (section 4).
• Analytics (consent-based): if you grant Analytics consent, Google Analytics 4 measures how our public marketing pages are used (section 5).
• Advertising and attribution (consent-based, currently not offered): advertising tags and the first-party campaign-attribution cookie would only run if you granted Marketing consent. Our consent banner does not currently offer that choice: advertising execution is switched off, so no advertising tag or attribution cookie is set, whatever an older stored choice says (sections 3 and 5).
• Abuse prevention: Google reCAPTCHA protects our free public tools, and a random device identifier in local storage limits abuse of free sign-ups (sections 4 and 6).

Our consent-gated Google Tag Manager loader runs only on our public marketing pages. It is not used on the signed-in product, sign-in and sign-up pages, or free public tools. This describes that loader’s scope, not a verified absence of services delivered separately by our hosting or delivery providers.

3. Cookies we set directly

We set exactly two first-party cookies of our own. Both are scoped to searchchamp.com and its subdomains, marked SameSite=Lax, and sent only over HTTPS on our deployed sites.

If you sign up while a Marketing grant is active, the attribution snapshot from sc_attr is stored with your account so we can attribute the sign-up to the campaign that led to it. When you are signed in, we send your consent grant or withdrawal to the account service. Server acknowledgement is needed to establish that it was recorded; a failed request must not be represented as a durable withdrawal.

4. Browser storage we use

The following is kept in your browser’s local storage and session storage. These are not cookies: they are not attached to every request your browser makes, and you can clear them at any time through your browser settings.

• Session tokens: when you sign in, AWS Cognito authentication tokens are stored in local storage under keys beginning CognitoIdentityServiceProvider. Access and identity tokens are valid for 1 hour; the refresh token keeps you signed in for up to 30 days. They are removed when you sign out. These are essential: without them you cannot stay signed in.
• Interface preferences: your appearance choice (light or dark), colour template, active workspace, and similar settings, so the app looks the way you left it.
• Sign-in handoff: session storage briefly carries state between steps of the sign-in flow and is discarded when the tab closes.
• Abuse prevention: a random browser identifier used to limit repeated sign-up attempts. The current client record expires after 30 days. Random generation does not make a linked request anonymous; this is an abuse-prevention signal, not an authentication credential.
• Local caches: copies of your own workspace data, kept so pages load faster.

None of this storage is used for advertising, and none of it is shared with advertising or analytics providers.

5. Consent-based analytics and advertising

On our public marketing pages we use analytics and advertising tags loaded through Google Tag Manager. The default in every region is denied. Until you make a granting choice in our consent banner, this tag container is not loaded. Analytics and Marketing are separate preference categories. Marketing is currently not offered: our banner lets you accept or reject analytics cookies only, and a stored Marketing grant is treated as denied until advertising is deliberately switched on and this policy is revised. The shared tag container must enforce those choices for each configured service; configuration evidence for analytics-only operation remains outstanding. This review draft does not certify that isolation.

Separate analytics verification: our DEV review observed a Cloudflare Web Analytics script delivered outside this tag container while consent was denied. Its configured purpose, data collection, retention and consent treatment have not been verified. This is a review finding, not confirmation of production configuration or a claim that the service is exempt from consent. These facts and the required controls must be reconciled before this draft takes effect; rejecting the tag container alone is not proof that all analytics is stopped.

The services documented for this integration, their intended consent categories and typical cookies are listed below. This inventory is not evidence that every service is enabled in the current environment; enabled tags, category enforcement and provider-controlled lifetimes require configuration verification:

These providers act as recipients of the data their tags collect; our current list of recipients and sub-processors is maintained at /legal/sub-processors, and how we handle the underlying data is described in our Privacy Policy.

Withdrawal changes the local consent state to denied and deletes our sc_attr cookie. Stopping tags already loaded depends on their consent integration; this draft does not certify every vendor’s stop behaviour. Account synchronization also needs an acknowledged server update; a local choice alone is not proof that a failed network request reached the server. Cookies a provider set before your withdrawal remain in your browser until they expire or you clear them; the browser links in section 7 explain how.

6. Third-party services

6.1 Stripe (payments)

Checkout and billing management happen on pages hosted by Stripe, on Stripe’s own domain. We do not load Stripe scripts on searchchamp.com, so Stripe sets no cookies on our pages. Stripe controls the cookies on its hosted pages and explains their purposes and choices in Stripe’s Privacy Policy.

6.2 Google reCAPTCHA (free tools)

Our free public tools are protected by Google reCAPTCHA, which distinguishes people from automated abuse. reCAPTCHA is provided by Google, may set its own cookies, and processes device and usage signals, including your IP address, under Google’s Privacy Policy. We use it solely for abuse prevention, which is why it is not controlled by the consent banner.

We do not embed advertising widgets, social media plugins, or third-party video players on our pages.

7. Managing your preferences

The consent banner: our tag-container consent defaults to denied everywhere. In the EEA, the UK, and Switzerland the banner offers Accept all, Reject all, and a granular choice between Analytics and Marketing. Elsewhere it is a short notice; dismissing it records a denial, never a grant. If you make no choice at all, our consent-gated tag loader does not load the tag container. Section 5 describes the separate analytics verification gap.

Changing your mind: use the Manage cookie preferences button at the bottom of this page. It withdraws any active grant, deletes the sc_attr attribution cookie, and reopens the granular preferences so you can make a fresh choice. Your choice is stored for 180 days; after it expires, or if we change what we ask consent for, we ask again.

Browser settings: most browsers let you view, block, or delete cookies and site data:

• Google Chrome
• Mozilla Firefox
• Apple Safari
• Microsoft Edge

Blocking or clearing the essential items (the consent cookie and the session tokens in local storage) will sign you out or cause the banner to reappear, but the site remains usable.

Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control: the current browser consent implementation does not separately process these signals. Default denial does not resolve a signal sent after an earlier grant. Where applicable law requires recognising an opt-out signal, that control must be implemented and verified before this draft is made effective; you can also use Manage cookie preferences or contact security@searchchamp.com.

8. Changes to this policy

We may update this Cookie Policy to reflect changes in the cookies and tags we use or in applicable law. When we make material changes we will update the “Effective” date at the top of this page. If a change means we need consent for something new, your existing consent record becomes invalid and the banner asks you again before anything new is set.

9. Contact

If you have questions about our use of cookies: