Legal
Cookie Policy
Effective from 25 September 2026. Version 1.0.
This is a short policy because there is not much to say. TheReviews, a TJG venture operated by Ikaroa sets two cookies on thereviews.net, both of them needed for the site to work, and keeps one small preference record in your browser's local storage. That is the full list.
Why there is no cookie banner
The law in the United Kingdom (the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations) and the European Union (the ePrivacy Directive) requires consent for cookies that are not strictly necessary to provide a service you asked for. We only set strictly necessary cookies, so there is nothing to ask consent for and nothing to put in a banner. If that ever changes, a banner will appear before any non-essential cookie is set, and this page will say what changed.
The cookies we set
| Name | What it does | Lasts | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
tr_session | Keeps you signed in. It holds a random session token; the server stores only a hash of it. Set when you sign in, cleared when you sign out. | 30 days | Essential |
tr_business | Remembers which of your businesses the dashboard is showing, so you land on the right one next time. Only set for business users. | 12 months, refreshed when you switch business | Essential |
Both cookies are set with the HttpOnly, Secure and SameSite=Lax attributes, which means scripts cannot read them, they travel only over HTTPS, and other sites cannot send them.
Local storage
When you save your choices in the cookie preferences panel, we write one record to your browser's local storage under the key tr_cookie_prefs. It holds your analytics choice and the time you saved it. It never leaves your browser, we cannot read it from our servers, and clearing your site data removes it.
What we do not do
- No advertising cookies. There are no adverts on TheReviews and no advertising networks on the page.
- No third-party analytics at launch. The preferences panel has an analytics switch so that, if we ever add a tool, it starts off and stays off until you turn it on.
- No tracking pixels in our emails beyond the open tracking our mail carrier provides, which you can defeat by blocking images in your mail client.
- Widgets set no cookies. When a business embeds a TheReviews widget on its own site, the widget is served in a frame that sets nothing in your browser. The widget's view is counted, not the viewer.
Cookies set by other companies
When a business upgrades its plan, payment is taken on pages hosted by Stripe. Stripe sets its own cookies on those pages for fraud prevention and to remember your details if you choose, under Stripe's own cookie policy. Those cookies belong to Stripe's domain and are not visible to us.
If you follow a link from TheReviews to a business's website or to Google, Facebook, Trustpilot or Yelp, those sites set their own cookies under their own policies.
Managing your preferences
The panel below lets you see what is set and save your choices. You can also open it from the “Manage cookies” link in the footer of every page. Because both cookies are essential, the only real choice today is the analytics switch, and it does nothing yet; it is there so that the control exists before it is needed.
You can also block or delete cookies in your browser. If you block tr_session you will not be able to stay signed in, and the dashboard will not work without tr_business. Reading reviews needs neither.
Changes
Each version of this policy carries its number and effective date at the top. If we add a cookie, or a third-party tool that sets one, this page is updated before the change goes live and a banner is added where consent is required.
Questions to email@thereviews.net. The Privacy Policy covers everything else we hold. Every document is listed on the Legal hub.