What SuggestedTech records about visits, and how to switch it off.
SuggestedTech has no accounts and shows no adverts. We record how the site is read, with our own analytics and with Google Analytics: the pages viewed, time on page and how far down they were read, links clicked, questions opened and page-speed measurements, each with the time, the referring website, search engine or AI assistant, your IP address and the network it belongs to, approximate location (from the IP address), browser, device, language and screen size, and a random visitor identifier. We use it to see which stories readers find useful. We never sell it.
Our own analytics sets _wsv, a random visitor identifier kept for two years (a copy is kept in your browser's local storage); _wss, a session marker that expires after 30 minutes without activity; _wso, which remembers that you opted out; and _wsi, which marks our own team's browsers so our visits are left out. Google Analytics sets _ga and _ga_<id> (two years) and keeps its data for 14 months. We set no advertising cookies.
Our own records of visits are kept for as long as they help us run the site; records of automated traffic are deleted after 90 days. Google processes its data under its own terms: see how Google uses data from sites that use its services.
You can switch analytics off in this browser at any time, ours and Google's alike: