Draft. Written in plain English from what the site actually does. It has not yet been reviewed by anyone qualified, and it must be before the site is public.
Cookies
Most of our cookies make the site work: keeping you signed in, knowing you are a member, remembering what you chose. A few more are set only if you say yes to being counted. Nothing follows you around other sites, and nothing is ever about your child.
Always on: the site needs these
| Name | What it does | How long |
|---|---|---|
sb-access-token, sb-refresh-token | Keep you signed in to your account. | 30 days, or until you sign out |
ew-ent | A signed note that your membership is active, so the stories keep opening if our account service is briefly down. | 2 days |
ew-signup | Ties a new account to the browser you are making it in, so only that browser can use the code we email you. | 15 minutes |
ew-checkout | Ties a payment to the browser that started it, so only that browser can use the code we email you. | 1 day |
ew-claim | Remembers, for half an hour, that you've just confirmed your email after paying, so you can choose a password. | 30 minutes |
ew-mfa, ew-2s-factor | Only if you use two-step sign-in: hold your place while you type the code, or while you set it up. | 10 to 15 minutes |
ew-basket | Remembers what is in your basket in the Village Shop. | 14 days |
ew-device | A random number that lets us tell you when your account is used from a device it hasn't been used from before. It says nothing about you. | 13 months |
ew-lang | The language you chose for the books. | 1 year |
ew-consent | Your answer to “May we count your visit?”, so we don’t ask again. | 1 year, or until the question changes |
ew_letters | Remembers that you signed up to Letters from Eric, so we stop asking. | 1 year |
ew_preview, ew_proof | Temporary: let invited people see the site and the books before launch. | Removed at launch |
ew-plot-new | Temporary: left from when the new Plot 28 was being tried before it opened. It does nothing now. | 90 days |
When you pay
Paying happens on pages run by the companies that take the payment, not on ours: Stripe for membership, and Shopify (at shop.ericandwally.com) for the Village Shop. They set their own cookies there to keep the payment safe and to remember your basket, and their own cookie notices say what those are. We never see your card details.
Only if you say yes: counting your visits
If you say yes, we use PostHog to see how the site is used: which pages, which stories, where a story was put down. It keeps a random number in your browser so your visits join up. It is never your email and never your plot’s name, and PostHog never looks up where your internet connection is.
The same yes also lets Google Analytics count your visit, so we can see how families find us through Google. Google Ireland Limited runs it for us. It keeps a random number in two cookies, and keeps what it counts for 14 months. Its advertising features are switched off, and we have not let Google use what it counts for anything of its own. It works out roughly where you are from your internet address, and does not keep the address.
Google’s code loads on our public pages: the home page, the stories shelf, joining, Letters, the about page, the village, the Village Shop and pages like this one. It never loads inside a book, the Sketchbook, Plot 28, Eric’s Satchel or your account. We never give Google your email address, your name, or anything about your child.
| Name | What it does | How long |
|---|---|---|
ph_…_posthog (a cookie, and the same in local storage) | A random number that joins your visits into one journey. | 1 year, or until you say no |
_ga (set by Google’s code) | A random number by which Google Analytics tells one browser from another. | Up to 2 years, or until you say no |
_ga_2BXRDLBS7Y (set by Google’s code) | Keeps the pages of one visit together, so they are counted as one visit. | Up to 2 years, or until you say no |
If you say no, or don’t answer, we still count each page once, on our own server, with nothing that could tell your visits apart: no cookie, no number, no record of who you are. None of Google’s code loads, and nothing is sent to Google. Your browser’s “don’t track me” setting counts as a no until you say otherwise.
Stored on your device
These stay in your browser.
ew:reading: your reading settings, such as text size and page colour.ew:progress-queue: your place in a story, held until it can be saved to your account.ew:sketchbook:: the colours you have filled in on a Sketchbook picture. Signed in, kept on this device alongside your account’s copy. Signed out, kept only until you close the tab.ew:country,ew:identified: only if you said yes, for this visit only.
Clearing them
Signing out removes the sign-in cookies. Saying no removes the counting cookies, and Google’s. Deleting your account, from your account page, removes everything about you, here and everywhere we keep it. You can also clear cookies in your browser’s settings at any time.
Counting your visits
Not asked yet.
Last updated 11 October 2026.