Cookie Policy
This Cookie Policy explains how Dietitians Without Borders (dietitianwithoutborders.com) uses cookies and similar technologies when you read our dietitian-authored guides to home medical nutrition equipment. We’ve written it the same way we write everything else here: plainly, without jargon where we can avoid it, and defining the terms that matter when we can’t. If you came to this page worried that we’re tracking everything you do, we’d rather you leave it reassured and informed than confused.
This policy was last reviewed on 1 June 2026. We’ll update the review date whenever we change how cookies work on the site.
What cookies actually are
A cookie is a small text file that a website asks your browser to store on your device. It usually holds a short identifier and a value — for example, a note that you’ve already dismissed our consent banner, or an anonymized ID that lets us count visitors without learning who you are. Cookies can’t run programs, read your other files, or carry viruses. They’re a memory aid for the website, nothing more.
“Similar technologies” is the catch-all phrase you’ll see in policies like this. For us it means a small amount of browser local storage (used for the same kinds of preferences a cookie would hold) and the standard server logs every website keeps. We don’t use device fingerprinting, tracking pixels embedded in our editorial articles, or any technique designed to follow you across other websites.
The categories of cookies we use
We group the cookies on this site into three honest categories. We’ve listed what each one is actually for, not a generic boilerplate description.
1. Essential cookies
These keep the site working and can’t be switched off, because without them the pages you’re trying to read wouldn’t load correctly. They never store anything we’d consider personal, and they don’t require your consent under most privacy laws because the site can’t function without them.
- Consent record — once you accept or decline optional cookies, we store that choice so we don’t ask you again on every page. This is the cookie that remembers your cookie preference.
- Security and session integrity — a short-lived token that protects forms (like our contact form) from cross-site request forgery, a common web attack. It exists only while you’re using a form and is discarded afterward.
- Load balancing — our pages are served from a content-delivery edge network, and a technical cookie helps route your request to a healthy server. It contains no personal data.
2. Analytics cookies
These help us understand which guides people find useful so we can write better ones. We genuinely use this — when we see that the enteral feeding pump guide gets read far more than its sister page on feeding bags, that tells us where to put our editorial effort. But analytics is optional, and you can decline it.
- Aggregate visit counting — how many people viewed a page, roughly where in the world they were (country level, not street level), and which other page they arrived from. We configure our analytics to anonymize IP addresses before storage.
- Reading behavior, in aggregate — whether readers reach the end of a long equipment guide or drop off halfway. This is reported to us as totals across all visitors, never as a profile of you personally.
We do not sell analytics data, and we don’t use it to build advertising profiles. We’re a dietitian editorial team, not an ad network.
3. Preference cookies
These remember small choices so the site behaves the way you left it. They’re optional, and the site works fine without them — you’d just have to re-make a choice now and then.
- Display preferences — for example, if we offer a larger-text or high-contrast reading mode, a preference cookie remembers that you turned it on.
- Dismissed notices — if you close a one-time informational banner, we remember not to show it again.
How long cookies stay on your device
Cookies are either session cookies, which disappear the moment you close your browser, or persistent cookies, which stay for a set period so the site can remember you on your next visit. Our essential security and load-balancing cookies are session cookies. Our consent record and preference cookies persist for up to twelve months, after which we’ll ask you again. Our analytics cookies persist for up to thirteen months in line with common data-minimization guidance, then expire automatically.
How we handle consent
When you first arrive, you’ll see a banner that lets you accept all cookies, reject everything that isn’t essential, or open a panel to choose category by category. Until you make a choice, we load only the essential cookies described above — no analytics or preference cookies run beforehand. We treat “reject” as a genuine instruction, not a prompt to keep asking.
You can change your mind at any time. Clearing the consent record (by clearing this site’s cookies in your browser, or using any “manage cookie settings” link we provide) will bring the banner back so you can choose again.
How to control or remove cookies yourself
You’re always in charge of cookies at the browser level, regardless of what any website asks. Every major browser lets you view stored cookies, delete them, and block them — either entirely or per site. The exact menu names differ, but you’ll find these controls under settings labelled Privacy, Site permissions, or Cookies and site data.
- Block all cookies — possible, though it will break the consent record and some functionality on most sites, not just ours.
- Delete cookies on close — most browsers can wipe cookies automatically each time you quit.
- Private/incognito browsing — discards cookies when the window closes, which is a simple way to read without leaving a persistent trace.
- Per-site controls — you can allow cookies generally but block them for an individual site, or the reverse.
If you block our essential cookies, please don’t be surprised if forms or preference toggles stop behaving — that’s the trade-off, and it’s the same on any site.
Third parties and the equipment guides
We keep our editorial nutrition content — recipes, diet explainers, disease-state guidance — free of commercial tracking on purpose, because credibility matters more to us than data. In our equipment guides we sometimes include a clearly labelled link to where a reader can source the supplies we’ve described (for example, enteral feeding sets or thickeners through a medical-supply retailer). Following such a link takes you to that third party’s own website, where their cookie policy and not ours applies. We don’t embed their tracking on our pages, and we don’t receive your personal data back from those links.
Changes to this policy
If we add a new cookie or change how an existing one works, we’ll revise this page and update the review date at the top. For material changes, we’ll re-prompt you for consent so your earlier choice is never quietly overridden.
Questions about cookies on this site
If anything here is unclear, or you’d like to know exactly what’s stored on your device when you visit, we’re happy to explain — the same way we’d talk a worried family through a piece of equipment. Reach our editorial team through our contact page, and we’ll walk you through it without the legal fog.