In plain English: TariffWatch uses a small number of cookies to keep you signed in, protect forms from cross-site attacks, and, only if you say yes on the cookie banner, to understand which pages people find useful and catch errors. We do not run third-party advertising cookies and do not sell or share cookie data.
1. How your choice works
The first-visit banner offers Accept all, Decline non-essential, or Manage preferences. Essential cookies always run. Analytics/error-tracking only run if you accept. EU/EEA/UK/Switzerland visitors (detected via a coarse server-side country signal) default to analytics off until accepted, per GDPR; everyone else defaults to on-unless-declined, per CalOPPA. Saved for one year in local storage + a first-party cookie.
2. Cookie categories
| Cookie | Category | What it does | Duration | Runs before consent? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
de_session | Essential | Keeps you signed in to your account. | Session | Yes. |
de_cookie_consent | Essential | Remembers your banner choice. | 1 year | Yes. |
de_geo_eu | Essential | Coarse EU/non-EU flag used only to pick the right consent default. | 24 hours | Yes. |
__stripe_mid, __stripe_sid | Essential (payments) | Stripe.js fraud prevention, checkout page only (once TariffWatch paid tiers ship). | Up to 1 year | Yes, checkout-page only. |
ph_* (PostHog) | Analytics | Anonymous device ID for usage analytics, where enabled on this product surface. | Up to 1 year | No, only after Accept. |
3. Rewardful (affiliate tracking)
TariffWatch does not currently run any affiliate-tracking cookie. If one is added, it will be gated behind this same consent choice and this page updated.
4. Third-party cookie policies
5. Your choices
Change your decision any time by clearing this domain's cookies/site data and reloading, or block cookies in your browser settings, this will also break login/checkout here and elsewhere.
8. Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control
We honor the browser-level Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal for California visitors: if your browser sends a GPC opt-out signal, we treat it as equivalent to clicking "Decline non-essential" and skip analytics/error-tracking init entirely. Legacy "Do Not Track" (DNT) headers aren't a legally binding signal under CCPA/CPRA the way GPC is, but if your browser sends DNT: 1, we treat that the same way -- as a decline -- out of caution rather than technicality-hunting.
9. Legal basis for each category
Essential cookies run under GDPR Art. 6(1)(b) (necessary to perform the contract) and sit outside ePrivacy consent requirements for exactly that reason. Analytics and error-tracking cookies run under GDPR Art. 6(1)(a) -- your freely-given, specific consent via the banner -- which is why they default off for EU visitors until accepted, and why declining costs nothing: TariffWatch's core exposure checker and comment-letter drafter works identically either way.
10. Browser-level controls
You can also block or clear cookies at the browser level: Chrome -- Settings → Privacy and security → Cookies; Safari -- Settings → Privacy → Manage Website Data; Firefox -- Settings → Privacy & Security → Cookies and Site Data. Blocking essential cookies browser-wide will log you out and may break checkout, on this site and most others.
13. Why we chose this consent model
A lot of consent banners are designed to wear you down into clicking "Accept all" (dark-pattern-style unequal button weighting, pre-ticked boxes, or a decline button buried three clicks deep). Ours isn't: Accept and Decline are the same visual weight, Decline is one click from the first screen, and declining changes nothing about whether TariffWatch works for you. We built it this way because the honest version of a compliance product should not run a dishonest cookie banner.
14. Enterprise and team accounts
If your organization requires a signed Data Processing Agreement or a specific cookie/analytics configuration as a condition of using TariffWatch (common for larger compliance/logistics teams), email hello@citationsafe.com, we can review analytics defaults for an Enterprise account on a case-by-case basis as part of onboarding.
15. What happens if you never interact with the banner
If you close the tab without clicking Accept, Decline, or Manage preferences, no choice is saved, the banner will show again on your next visit, and the same visit-time default (EU: analytics off; everywhere else: analytics on) applies for that session only. Nothing is "silently accepted" by inaction; a stored decision only exists once you actually click one of the three options.
16. Cookies and the free checker specifically
Running TariffWatch's free checker does not require accepting any cookie category beyond essential, you can decline analytics entirely and still get a full result. The only place a cookie decision has a visible effect is whether we can see aggregate, anonymized usage patterns (which pages people bounce from, which results sections get the most attention) to prioritize what we build next. Declining does not degrade your own result in any way.
15. Related pages
16. Contact
Questions about this policy: hello@citationsafe.com.
Digital Empire Holdings LLC, 30 N Gould St Ste N, Sheridan WY 82801