Cookie and Site Technologies Policy

This policy explains how Research Rats uses cookies, localStorage, scripts and similar site technologies.

Research Rats currently uses limited technologies necessary to operate the website, support login/member access, remember site technology preferences and understand basic site performance.

1. Current launch position

At launch, Research Rats does not currently use:

• advertising cookies;
• behavioural advertising tools;
• marketing pixels;
• Google Analytics;
• Google Tag Manager;
• Meta/Facebook Pixel;
• TikTok Pixel;
• Hotjar;
• Microsoft Clarity;
• PostHog;
• Segment;
• Fathom;
• Mixpanel;
• Amplitude;
• FullStory;
• Heap;
• Datadog;
• Sentry/error monitoring;
• Stripe runtime;
• session replay;
• @vercel/analytics;
• sessionStorage;
• IndexedDB;
• direct document.cookie usage in the application code.

2. Technologies currently used

Supabase authentication/session cookies. Used for login, authenticated sessions and member access. They are treated as strictly necessary for account functionality. Cookie names, expiry periods and attributes must be confirmed through browser inspection before publication.

First-party consent/preference record. Research Rats stores a localStorage key named rr-cookie-consent. This records your cookie/site technology preference after you interact with the banner.

Vercel Speed Insights. Used for cookieless performance measurement. It helps understand site speed and reliability. According to the current audit, it does not set cookies or localStorage. It is currently active before or without cookie banner interaction.

Self-hosted fonts. Google fonts are self-hosted through the application and served same-origin. They do not create runtime Google Fonts third-party requests.

Inline structured data. The site may use first-party JSON-LD structured data for SEO. This does not store information on your device.

3. Plausible analytics

Plausible is present in code but currently disabled because the required environment variable is unset.

If Plausible is enabled later, this policy must be updated and the consent/legal-basis position must be reviewed.

4. Optional analytics in future

If optional analytics are introduced later, they must not load before consent unless professional review confirms a lawful alternative basis and the technical implementation reflects that decision.

5. Managing preferences

You may manage your site technology preferences through the cookie/site technologies banner or preferences panel.

Rejecting non-essential technologies should not prevent you from accessing ordinary website content, although strictly necessary technologies remain required for login and member access.