Cookie Policy

This policy explains what WA Lookup stores in your browser, which of it you can switch off, and how to change your mind later. We group everything into two tiers: strictly necessary, and analytics and marketing. Only the second is optional, and it stays off until you accept.

Last updated: 21 September 2026

1. Cookies, and what we actually use

"Cookie" is the common name for this, but WA Lookup itself does not set cookies. What we store, we store in your browser's local storage, which works the same way for you: it stays on your device, we can read it back on your next visit, and clearing your browsing data removes it. Cookies in the strict sense are set here only by the third parties named below, each under its own policy.

2. Strictly necessary — always on

Three things the site cannot work without, plus live chat. Your sign-in session, stored as wachecker_wa_token, which is what keeps you logged in; the record of the choice you make on the cookie banner, stored as consent_cookie, because we have to remember it in order to honour it; and Cloudflare Turnstile, which checks that sign-in, registration, password reset and contact submissions come from a person rather than a script, and which may set its own cookie while doing so. Signing in with Google loads Google's script on the sign-in and registration pages, and Google sets its own cookies for that. None of this is used to track you across other websites, and there is no switch for it — turning it off would mean turning off logging in. Live chat sits in this tier as well: Crisp loads on every page, so that support is reachable without you having to accept anything first, and it stores two cookies and two local-storage entries of its own; once you are signed in we pass it your account email so support knows who they are talking to.

3. Analytics and marketing — off until you turn it on

Google Tag Manager, and through it Google Analytics and Google Ads, which tell us how many people visit, which pages they read and which advertising campaigns bring them here. In the same tier we store one record of our own: the campaign, referrer and landing page of your very first visit, kept as wachecker:wa:first-touch and, if you go on to create an account, saved against that account so we can tell which channels actually produce customers. It is written once and never overwritten, so a later visit does not rewrite where you originally came from. These two purposes share one switch because they share one Google Tag Manager container and the same first-visit record — a separate marketing switch would not have anything of its own to turn off, and we would rather not offer a control that does nothing.

4. Nothing optional runs before you say so

Google Tag Manager loads on every page, but it starts in a denied state through Google Consent Mode: until you accept, its tags set no cookies and no identifiers, and send only anonymous, aggregated signals. Live chat is the exception, and it is not optional: for the reason given above, it loads straight away. Your first-visit record is held in memory and written only if you accept — so if you arrive from an ad and accept a few pages later, we still record the page you actually landed on rather than the one you happened to be reading.

5. Changing or withdrawing your choice

The banner appears on your first visit and remembers your answer for a year, after which we ask again. There is no separate settings panel: the optional tier is a single yes or no, and the banner is where you answer it. To change your answer before the year is out, clear this site's cookies and local storage in your browser — in Chrome, the icon at the left of the address bar, then Cookies and site data — and the banner will ask again on your next page load; anything the tier had already stored goes with it. You can also block storage entirely in your browser settings; blocking the strictly necessary items will sign you out and stop the dashboard and API key tools from working. If you would rather we did it for you, write to us through the support page or the contact form and we will action the request.

6. Who else is involved, and for how long

Cloudflare provides the bot check on our forms, Google provides optional sign-in, Google Tag Manager loads Google Analytics and Google Ads, and live chat runs on Crisp, which receives your account email once you are signed in. Each reads or sets identifiers under its own policy and its own retention period, which we do not control. What we store ourselves has no expiry date attached: it stays until you clear your browsing data, sign out, or change your choice here. We do not sell personal data.

7. Questions

If you want to know what we hold about you, or you disagree with anything here, reach us through the support page or the contact form. We would rather hear it than not.