1. What a cookie actually is
A cookie is simply a tiny plain-text file that a website writes into your browser's storage area. Its job is to remember small crumbs of information across page loads and between visits, things like whether you have already dismissed the consent banner or which country page you last landed on. Cookies are inert data; they cannot execute code, they cannot install anything, and they cannot ferry a virus onto your device. Wherever "cookies" appear on this page we are using the word broadly, so it also stands in for related storage technologies such as browser local storage and web pixels.
2. The cookies Aussino.org places
The table below is the complete inventory of cookies you might end up carrying while reading Aussino.org, grouped by what they are for. The essential session cookies are always on, because the site cannot behave properly without them. The analytics cookies are only ever loaded after you have said yes on the consent banner, and only ever in a form that has been anonymised at the source.
| Type | Cookie name(s) | What it does | How long it lasts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essential session | cc_session |
Anonymous session token used for basic security controls and rate-limiting on the server. | Session only (deleted the moment you close the browser) |
| Essential session | cc_consent |
Records the choice you made on the cookie banner so the prompt does not resurface on every new page. | 12 months |
| Analytics | _ga, _ga_* |
Google Analytics with IP anonymisation switched on; traffic totals are only ever reported to us in aggregate. | 13 months |
| Analytics | _clck, _clsk |
Microsoft Clarity, providing pooled heatmaps and scroll-depth data with no personal identifiers attached. | 12 months (_clck) / session (_clsk) |
| Analytics | _pk_id, _pk_ses |
Matomo, tracking unique-visitor and session counts with IP-address masking enabled by default. | 13 months / 30 minutes |
That really is the full list. No advertising cookies are placed, no retargeting pixels are fired at you afterwards, and nothing gathered from these cookies is ever sold, rented or shared with a third party for marketing use. That posture is deliberate and lines up with the reasonable expectations of use required under APP 6.
3. Turning cookies off through your browser
The most direct way to shut analytics off on Aussino.org is right on the consent banner itself: click decline and none of the analytics cookies above will ever be written. If you would prefer to police cookies more broadly across every site you visit, every mainstream browser gives you built-in controls to inspect, block or wipe them out:
- Chrome: Settings → Privacy and security → Cookies and other site data. From here you can block third-party cookies, block cookies entirely, or clear the ones already saved for a particular domain.
- Firefox: Settings → Privacy & Security → Cookies and Site Data. Switching Enhanced Tracking Protection to the "Strict" setting blocks cross-site tracking cookies for you automatically.
- Safari (macOS): Settings → Privacy → block all cookies, or open Manage Website Data to remove individual entries one at a time. On iPhone or iPad, head to Settings → Safari → Advanced → Website Data.
- Edge: Settings → Cookies and site permissions → Manage and delete cookies and site data.
- Private or incognito windows: anything written in a private tab is discarded automatically the moment you close it.
Be aware that blocking the essential cookies will make certain parts of the site behave oddly, most visibly the consent banner will lose track of your previous decision and pop up again on every visit. Blocking the analytics cookies, on the other hand, has no bearing on the reviews or the content itself and will never lock you out of anything on the site.
4. Third-party cookies you might encounter
A handful of cookies you may pick up while browsing Aussino.org are actually written by other companies rather than by us. The obvious example is affiliate tracking: when you click an outbound link to a casino, the operator you land on, or its affiliate network, may drop a cookie so that any account you subsequently open is credited back to Aussino.org. That is how referral payments are calculated. It costs you nothing extra at any stage and has zero influence on what our reviewers write. From the moment you leave our site, the destination casino's own cookie and privacy policies apply in place of ours. Affiliate cookies of that kind usually stay live for somewhere between 30 and 90 days before expiring on their own.
5. Getting in touch and policy revisions
Any questions about the cookies in use, or about the personal information we hold on you, can be sent to hello@aussino.org. Formal privacy queries are answered inside the 30-day window that the Australian Privacy Principles set for handling such requests, and if you are not satisfied with our response you retain the right to escalate the matter to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (oaic.gov.au). Broader data questions are covered in our Privacy Policy. Whenever we adjust the tooling on the site or the underlying rules move, this page and the last-updated date at the top of the lead are refreshed to match. The current live version is dated 31 July 2026.