Cookie policy

1. What are cookies and similar technologies?

A cookie is a small text file that a website stores on your device to remember information about your visit. We also use similar browser-storage technologies — principally local storage and session storage — which serve the same purposes as cookies but store data within your browser rather than sending it back to a server on every request. In this policy, “cookies” refers to all of these technologies collectively.

Cookies can be first-party (set by EmberHound) or third-party (set by a service provider acting on our behalf). They can be session cookies (deleted when you close your browser) or persistent cookies (retained until they expire or you delete them).

2. Our approach

We use a deliberately small number of cookies, and nothing beyond the strictly necessary ones loads until you tell us it can. Analytics and advertising are asked for as two separate choices, so you can accept one and refuse the other, and both are off until you act.

We do use advertising cookies, but only with your consent. If you consent to advertising, the LinkedIn, X and Meta pixels and Google’s Preferred Sources button described in Section 3.4 are loaded. The LinkedIn, X and Meta pixels may use the resulting data for cross-context behavioural advertising under their own privacy policies; the Preferred Sources button does not - it is used for search personalisation, not behavioural ad targeting. If you do not consent, no request is made to any of them.

We do not sell the information collected by cookies for money. Note that under some US state privacy laws, including the California CPRA, enabling advertising cookies can itself count as “sharing” personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising. Refusing advertising in our banner prevents that. So does your browser’s Global Privacy Control signal, which we honour automatically: if your browser sends it, advertising cookies are switched off and locked off without you having to do anything, and the advertising option in our banner will show as unavailable. GPC applies to advertising only; you still choose analytics for yourself. The categories below describe everything we store on your device.

3. Categories of cookies we use

3.1 Strictly necessary

Required for the Service to function. These are always on and cannot be disabled, because the Service cannot operate without them. Under the ePrivacy rules they do not require consent.

• Authentication session — keeps you signed in and secures requests to our backend. Stored in your browser’s local storage for the duration of your session.
• Sidebar state — a first-party cookie remembering whether the app sidebar is expanded or collapsed (expires after 7 days).
• Feature configuration cache — short-lived local-storage cache of which features your organisation has enabled (refreshed every few minutes).
• Cookie consent — a first-party record of the choice you made in our cookie banner, so we don’t ask again on every visit.

3.2 Functional

Remember in-product preferences and the state of dismissible notices — for example your theme (light or dark), notification-sound preference, and banners you have already closed. These are stored locally on your device and are not used to track you across other sites.

3.3 Analytics & error monitoring

Loaded only if you consent to analytics in our cookie banner. This is a separate choice from advertising (Section 3.4): you can accept analytics and refuse advertising, or the other way round. If you choose “Essential only”, none of the following are loaded:

• Product performance (Vercel Speed Insights) — aggregate page-performance metrics; no advertising profile is built.
• Error and session-replay monitoring (Sentry) — captures errors to help us fix problems. Replay masks all text and blocks media, and we never attach your email or name.
• Website analytics (Google Analytics 4) — measures which pages are visited and how visitors move through the site, so we can improve it. We switch off Google Signals and ad-personalisation signals, so this data is not used to build an advertising profile of you or to target ads.
• Review widget (Trustpilot) — displays customer reviews on our homepage, footer and pricing page. Unlike the three services above, Trustpilot acts as an independent controller for the data its widget collects and may use it for its own purposes (review verification and fraud prevention) under Trustpilot’s own privacy policy, rather than as our processor.

3.4 Advertising & retargeting

Loaded only if you consent to advertising, which is asked for separately from analytics and is switched off unless you turn it on. The LinkedIn, X and Meta pixels below measure whether our advertising works and let us show you our ads on those platforms, and are delivered through a Google Tag Manager container. The Preferred Sources button below is loaded directly, not through that container, and is not used to measure or target advertising. None of the four loads without your advertising consent, so declining means no request is made to Google Tag Manager, Google, LinkedIn, X or Meta.

• LinkedIn Insight Tag (LinkedIn Ireland Unlimited Company) — measures responses to our LinkedIn advertising and allows us to advertise to you on LinkedIn.
• X (Twitter) Pixel (Twitter International Unlimited Company) — measures responses to our advertising on X and allows us to advertise to you there.
• Meta Pixel (Meta Platforms Ireland Limited) — measures responses to our advertising on Facebook and Instagram and allows us to advertise to you on those platforms.
• Preferred Sources button (Google Ireland Limited) lets you add EmberHound to your preferred sources in Google Search. Until you consent, the button on our pages is an image we host ourselves and no request is made to Google; consenting replaces it with Google’s own button, which is loaded from Google.

These providers act as independent controllers, or in some cases as joint controllers with us, for the data they collect. That means they may use it for their own purposes under their own privacy policies, which we do not control. You can withdraw advertising consent at any time using the “Cookie preferences” link in our footer (Section 6), and you can also control ad personalisation in your account settings on the LinkedIn, X and Meta platforms.

3.5 Embedded video

Our demo page features a product video hosted on YouTube. The page shows a still image that we host ourselves, and the YouTube player is loaded only if you press play. Until you do, no request is made to Google or YouTube and no cookies are set by them. Pressing play is treated as your consent to load the player.

When the player does load, we use YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode (youtube-nocookie.com), which does not store viewing information used for personalised advertising. YouTube may still set cookies necessary to play the video and count views. You can avoid this entirely by not pressing play, or by watching the video directly on YouTube instead.

4. Legal basis and consent

We rely on your consent for analytics and error-monitoring cookies, in line with the UK Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) and the EU ePrivacy Directive, read alongside the UK and EU GDPR. Strictly-necessary cookies are used on the basis of our legitimate interest in providing a functioning, secure Service and do not require consent. You can withdraw consent at any time (see Section 6) without affecting the lawfulness of processing carried out before withdrawal.

5. Third-party providers

Some cookies are set by service providers who process data on our behalf. These are the same sub-processors described in our Privacy Policy. Our analytics and error-monitoring cookies are set by Vercel (Speed Insights), Sentry (error and session-replay monitoring) and Google (Analytics 4), and load only if you consent to analytics. Those three act as our processors under contractual data-protection obligations and are not permitted to use the data for their own advertising purposes. Our review widget is set by Trustpilot, also loads only if you consent to analytics, but unlike those three, Trustpilot acts as an independent controller for the data it collects and may use it for its own purposes, as described in Section 3.3. Our advertising cookies are set by LinkedIn, X, Meta and Google (the Preferred Sources button), load only if you separately consent to advertising, and are described in Section 3.4 - unlike the analytics providers, those providers may use the data for their own purposes. Separately, Google (YouTube) may set cookies if, and only if, you press play on the video embedded on our demo page, as described in Section 3.5.

Google is based in the United States. Where consenting to our analytics cookies results in personal data being transferred outside the UK or EEA, that transfer is made under Google’s standard data-processing terms, which incorporate the UK International Data Transfer Addendum and the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses. Google Analytics 4 anonymises IP addresses as standard, and we additionally disable Google Signals and ad-personalisation signals, so the data we receive is aggregate measurement rather than an advertising profile.

6. How to manage your cookies

You control non-essential cookies in two ways:

• Our cookie banner. On your first visit you can choose “Accept all cookies” or “Essential only”. You can change or withdraw your choice at any time using the “Cookie preferences” link in our website footer, which re-opens the banner. Withdrawing consent is as easy as giving it.
• Your browser. Most browsers let you block or delete cookies and clear local storage through their settings. Note that blocking strictly-necessary cookies will prevent parts of the Service from working — for example, you may not be able to stay signed in.

We do use advertising cookies, but only if you consent to advertising, a choice made separately from analytics; declining, or later withdrawing via the “Cookie preferences” link above, means no request is made to those providers. Your browser’s Global Privacy Control signal is honoured automatically as a standing refusal of the advertising choice (Section 2). The LinkedIn, X and Meta platforms also let you control ad personalisation directly in your own account settings, as described in Section 3.4.

7. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time as the Service evolves or the cookies we use change. We’ll give reasonable notice of material changes, and the effective date at the top of this page always reflects the current version.

8. Contact

Questions about this policy or how we use cookies: privacy@emberhound.com.

EmberHound Ltd is a company registered in England and Wales (Company No. 17113470), with its registered office at 1 Woodleys Yard, West St, Aldbourne, Marlborough SN8 2BL, United Kingdom. This policy is governed by the laws of England and Wales.