What Cookies And Similar Technologies Are
A cookie is a small text file that a website asks a browser to store and send back on later requests. It lets a site recognise a returning browser, keep a person signed in across pages, or remember a setting.
"Similar technologies" covers anything that stores or reads data on a device for the same purpose. The ones relevant to an FPT site are:
- Local storage and session storage — key/value data the browser keeps for a site. Session storage is cleared when the tab closes; local storage persists until it is removed.
- Pixels and tags — a tiny image or script embedded in a page or an email that reports that it loaded.
- Device or browser fingerprinting — inferring an identifier from a device's characteristics rather than storing one.
Throughout this policy, "cookie" is used as shorthand for all of these unless a specific technology is named. A first-party cookie is set by the site being visited; a third-party cookie is set by another domain whose script the page loads.
The Categories FPT Uses
Funded Prediction Trader ("FPT") groups cookies and similar technologies into four categories. The status shown for each is FPT's honest position as at the effective date of this policy.
Strictly Necessary
Technologies without which a requested feature cannot work — keeping a signed-in session valid, carrying checkout state between steps, remembering the choice made in a consent control, and security functions such as protecting a form against cross-site request forgery, rate limiting and abuse detection.
Status: in use where a feature requires it. These are first-party, they are not used to build a profile, and they cannot be switched off while the feature that depends on them is in use. Most FPT pages a visitor sees before creating an account need none of them.
Preference
Technologies that remember a choice so a visitor does not have to make it again — for example a saved selection in the account builder or a remembered display option.
Status: in use only where a visitor makes such a choice. These are first-party, they store a setting rather than an identity, and they are not used for advertising.
Analytics
Technologies that measure how a site is used — page views, navigation paths, aggregate engagement.
Status: NOT IN USE TODAY. FPT's site loads no third-party analytics script and sets no analytics cookie. FPT's codebase contains an internal, provider-agnostic event dispatcher that forwards events only if an analytics provider is already present on the page; because no provider is installed, it does nothing at all. No analytics data leaves the visitor's browser.
Advertising
Technologies that build an interest profile, track a person across sites, retarget them with advertisements, or measure an advertising campaign.
Status: NOT IN USE TODAY. FPT's site loads no advertising or retargeting script, sets no advertising cookie, and does not share browsing behaviour with an advertising network.
What Is Set Today
The following table is a factual statement of the position as at the effective date of this policy. FPT does not list a cookie it does not set, and does not name a vendor it has not selected.
| Category | Purpose | Status today |
|---|---|---|
| Strictly necessary | Keep a signed-in account session valid | In use when signed in |
| Strictly necessary | Carry checkout and order state between steps | In use during a purchase |
| Strictly necessary | Security, abuse prevention and form protection | In use where a form or protected route requires it |
| Strictly necessary | Remember a consent choice, once a consent control exists | Not in use today — no non-essential technology to consent to |
| Preference | Remember a display or selection choice a visitor made | In use only after such a choice is made |
| Analytics | Measure site usage | Not in use — no analytics script, no analytics cookie |
| Advertising | Profiling, retargeting, cross-site tracking, ad measurement | Not in use — no advertising script, no advertising cookie |
Browsing FPT's public pages — the homepage, the blog, the Help Center and the legal pages — while signed out sets no analytics cookie and no advertising cookie.
Consent And Preference Controls
FPT's position on consent is simple, and it is stated as a commitment rather than as a description of something already built.
No non-essential cookie is set today. There is therefore nothing to consent to, and FPT does not show a consent banner that would ask permission for technologies it does not use. A banner that requests consent for nothing is noise, not transparency.
Before FPT introduces any analytics or advertising technology, FPT will present a consent control on the affected site. That control will:
- appear before the non-essential technology is loaded, not after;
- describe the categories in question in plain language;
- allow a visitor to accept or decline non-essential categories separately from strictly necessary ones;
- make declining as easy as accepting; and
- remain reachable afterwards so a choice can be changed or withdrawn at any time.
This policy will be updated at the same time, its version will be raised, and the table above will be rewritten to state exactly what is then set. FPT will not quietly add a tracking script under an unchanged policy.
Where local law requires consent before any non-essential technology is used, that requirement is honoured in full and consent is obtained before the technology loads.
Browser And Device Controls
Independently of anything FPT does, a visitor can control cookies in their own browser. Every major browser allows a person to:
- view, and delete, the cookies and storage a site has set;
- block third-party cookies, or block all cookies for a named site;
- clear cookies automatically when the browser closes; and
- browse in a private or incognito window, which discards site data when the window is closed.
These settings sit under the privacy or site-data section of the browser's settings, and the browser's own help pages describe the exact steps for that version.
Blocking strictly necessary technologies will break the features that depend on them. In particular, an account session may not stay signed in, and a checkout flow may not be able to carry its state from one step to the next. Blocking analytics or advertising technologies has no effect on an FPT site today, because none is used.
Mobile operating systems provide their own controls, including a device advertising identifier that can be reset or limited in the system privacy settings.
Do Not Track And Global Privacy Control
Do Not Track (DNT) is a browser header that asks sites not to track the visitor. No common standard for honouring it was ever agreed, and many sites ignore it. FPT does not need to respond to it in any special way today, because FPT performs no cross-site tracking and sets no advertising technology for a DNT signal to disable.
Global Privacy Control (GPC) is a more recent browser or extension signal that communicates an opt-out of the sale or sharing of personal information. FPT does not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising. If FPT ever introduces a technology to which a GPC signal is relevant, FPT will treat a GPC signal as a valid opt-out request for the browser that sent it, and will say so in this policy at that time.
Retention
How long a stored item lasts depends on what it is for.
- Session items — including a signed-in session and checkout state — last for the browsing session or the life of the session, and are cleared when the session ends, the visitor signs out, or the browser is closed.
- Preference items — a remembered choice — persist until the choice is changed, the item expires, or the visitor clears their site data.
- Security items — used for form protection or abuse prevention — are short-lived by design and expire quickly.
- Analytics and advertising items — none is set, so none is retained.
FPT keeps every stored item for no longer than the purpose it serves requires. Retention of the personal information behind an account, as distinct from a cookie on a device, is described in the Privacy Policy.
Changes To This Policy And How To Contact FPT
FPT will update this policy when the facts change — in particular, before any analytics or advertising technology is introduced, and whenever a new category comes into use. Each version carries its own version number and effective date, and a material change is announced rather than published silently.
Questions about this policy, or about what is stored on a device by an FPT site, go to privacy@fundedpredictiontrader.com. General product questions go to support@fundedpredictiontrader.com.
Related documents: Privacy Policy · Terms of Use · Refund, Cancellation and Chargeback Policy · Simulation and Risk Disclosure